• 05/12/2012 - ArtistServer Version 2 on the Horizon
• 05/31/2009 - 18 More Social Sites Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/25/2009 - Run Your Own Remix or Music Project at ArtistServer.com
• 05/22/2009 - AudioBoo.fm and YouNoodle.com Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/06/2009 - mp3tunes.com - no option to close your account
• 03/17/2009 - How to run a Remix Project
• 09/28/2008 - My Lovely Wife Lou is Pregnant
• 12/14/2007 - ArtistServer News and a new site: FreeMusicLicensing.com
• 09/18/2007 - AritstServer and ToneThis Serve Up Indie Ringtones
• 09/11/2007 - Running LightTPD and PHP on Windows

We are getting closer to the system migration/upgrade so I needed to spend some of my development time on preparing for the big change. How big? We are changing the operating system, the database, the application server, server/network configuration from 1 box to 2, then a 3rd a few weeks after that. Basically - the only thing that isn't changing, is the code, and the content on the site. With so many factors changing, this is potentially a complicated upgrade - which is why I'll first attempt a test upgrade here at the studio. The only differences w/ this test setup, is that it will all function on 1 computer instead of 2 as I have planned.

With so many factors updating, I'm not even sure how much faster the site will run. At the Macromedia site, I'm seeing data that shows response time at 2.5 times faster than our previous version of ColdFusion - over at Microsoft, I can't find anything about performance increases across versions, but from what I understand, there is a significant performance increase between Win2000 and NT4. Lastly, we add to that the performance increases due to upgrading SQL7 to SQL2000, and I think we are looking at a total of maybe 5 times faster than our current configuration. Ah - but wait... there's even more performance around the corner! By bumping our database to it's own server, where it can use all the RAM and CPU without competing with the other systems, we'll see an even higher level of performance. With the hardware in place - and all the code updates I've done - we should be in great shape for scaling up to handle much more traffic than we have right now.

After antoher month, I'll add on another server to handle streaming which should also benefit our performance and stability. From there, we will start using load balancing and start creating a Web Farm for ArtistServer - and as she grows, we'll then replicate that Farm at another ISP - giving us complete failover security - but that's a littler further down the road. :) For those who are curious - here's a run down on what I have to do to get ready for the migration:

1. Outline the system configuration in a document
2. Install Win2000 Server
3. Configure IIS - Web Server
4. Install OS Updates
5. Install MSSQL Server 2000 Standard
6. Configure SQL Server
7. Install SQL Server Updates
8. Install ColdFusion MX7
9. Configure ColdFusion
10. Install ColdFusion Updates
11. Back up all ArtistServer code, the database, publishing directories, custom tags
12. Back up all People data (uploaded images and files)
13. Pull down a portion of the songs for testing
14. Create Hosts file to route domain names to local testing box
15. Setup ArtistServer site and directories
16. Setup Web Server settings
17. Set up Streaming settings
18. Run ColdFusion MX7 Compatability Tool
19. Fix issues
20. Test site and code
21. Pickup more RAM and hard drives - install
22. meet with our systems engineer (contractor)
23. schedule the migtration
24. meet at facility
25. setup test system
26. test it
27. complete migration
28. test it/Fix issues
29. monitor systems
30. relax
31.