Whoops, The Main Server Is Getting Clobbered

If you've had a hard time accessing Phoronix.com this morning, you're not the only one. The main Phoronix web-server is getting clobbered at the moment. This is due to lots of attention to the small Linux kernel patch that is doing wonders to the desktop in terms of enhancing the system responsiveness/interactivity under CPU load. The main Phoronix.com server CPU load should be back to normal shortly, but fortunately this will be less of a problem in the future.

The Phoronix.com server infrastructure used to be able to handle normal traffic load plus the extra traffic surges from SlashDot, Digg, and other social web-sites on high-profile articles just fine (well, up until going to Chernobyl earlier this year), but with current traffic volumes as of late plus this extra load, when such breaking articles come out the hosting has dropped to its knees.

Fortunately, this should be resolved soon. As luck would have it, the Phoronix Media web infrastructure is being upgraded. In part this is due to these recent traffic surges straining the web-serving capabilities, but more importantly to accommodate the future growth expected for OpenBenchmarking.org and the Phoronix Test Suite. OpenBenchmarking.org is a new online component for benchmarking that will launch in conjunction with Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 "Iveland" early next year. While it's not even out publicly yet, I expect OpenBenchmarking.org to eventually become bigger -- both in terms of traffic and even greater industry importance -- than Phoronix.com itself.

For this to occur, the Phoronix Media web infrastructure will begin its upgrade process as soon as this coming weekend or next week when US traffic volumes are down for Thanksgiving. As part of the first phase of the upgrade, the server hardware capabilities will be more than tripled and Terabytes of more bandwidth will be allocated.

Stay tuned for more information.