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Todd

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Chief Bottle Washer

New Jersey
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Feb 13, 2004, 2:32 pm
For those interested in the technology side of things, over the next 1-2 months I'll be doing a big server upgrade.
Right now, Lottery Post runs on a dedicated server, along with a couple of other of my Web sites. Well, with the way technology improves over time, I decided that it's time to do a hardware upgrade.
In doing my research, I've decided to take a long-term approach and really go all-out. This will allow plenty of room for future expansion.
If there's interest, I thought I could document the technology upgrade. Some of the highlights of the upgrade include:
- An entire 45U rack of space
- Separate Web, database, and e-mail servers
- Maxed-out technology, like 15,000 RPM SCSI drives, dual Xeon processors per server, 8-16 GB memory per server, etc.
- All servers with RAID-5 drive arrays and active hot backup drives (will automatically failover and rebuild a bad drive, with no downtime)
- All servers on an internal gigabit network
While a lot of work (and VERY expensive), this is going to be a fun project! I know that we have some techno-weenies on the forum (like me!), so let me know if you'd like some updates every now and then.
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kbcherokee

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Feb 13, 2004, 6:17 pm

Todd:

Most definately...
Chief

May the warm winds of heaven blow softly upon your house. May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there. May your mocassins make happy tracks in many snows. And may the rainbow always touch your shoulder.
BobP

Dump Water Florida
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Feb 13, 2004, 7:40 pm

Yes please keep us informed on what's happening behind the scenes. Is the server from Northrop? When will predictions be compared to the drawings? Curious minds wanna know. BobP
dvdiva

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Feb 13, 2004, 8:16 pm

i'm building a dual xeon myself - in march the iwill 800 boards come out.
i would almost wonder at this time if you could get the performance you want out of a raid on serial-ide drives off a pci-x controller
i usually goto www.2cpu.com for getting ideas on building my dualies
you should at least wait until the 1 and 2mb xeon dp chips fall - they are supposed to be cheaper on feb 15. the cache difference would really be worth it.
you also might want to check out http://www.gamepc.com/labs/index.asp to compare boards and chipsets.
Todd

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Chief Bottle Washer

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Feb 13, 2004, 8:44 pm

Quote: Originally posted by dvdiva on February 13, 2004

i'm building a dual xeon myself - in march the iwill 800 boards come out.
i would almost wonder at this time if you could get the performance you want out of a raid on serial-ide drives off a pci-x controller
i usually goto www.2cpu.com for getting ideas on building my dualies
you should at least wait until the 1 and 2mb xeon dp chips fall - they are supposed to be cheaper on feb 15. the cache difference would really be worth it.
you also might want to check out http://www.gamepc.com/labs/index.asp to compare boards and chipsets.

This is higher-end stuff, and all rackmount.
I'll be using dual 3.20 GHz Xeon chips w/ 1 MB L3 cache each. The DB server is the first that I've configured.
It's a SuperMicro 7043P-8R, with 10 hot-swap drive bays on a dual-channel SCSI Ultra320 controller. I added the Adaptec 2010S zero-channel SCSI RAID card, which is an awesome RAID card. The RAID will be configured as 9 drives in a RAID 5 array, with an extra hot-spare drive with automatic rebuild. That means if a drive fails, the spare drive will automatically rebuild, take the place of the bad drive, and the bad drive can be replaced at leisure. All with zero downtime - total invisibility that anything bad has happened.
The drives will be 10 Seagate 37GB 15,000 RPM SCSI Ultra320 drives w/ 8 MB buffers and 3.6 ms avg. seek time.
It's gonna rock.

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Todd

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Feb 13, 2004, 8:47 pm

Quote: Originally posted by BobP on February 13, 2004

Yes please keep us informed on what's happening behind the scenes. Is the server from Northrop? When will predictions be compared to the drawings? Curious minds wanna know. BobP

Hey BobP,
The Northrop computer is a workstation, which is really quite different from the server. (And vice-versa: a server is typically not really setup very well as a workstation.)
On the predictions question, there is a bit of work to do on capturing the results themselves and setting up a great database for everything. It's coming, but will realistically not be ready for a month or two. (I've got lots of other projects I'm working on simultaneously!)

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BobP

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Feb 13, 2004, 10:42 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Todd on February 13, 2004

Quote: Originally posted by BobP on February 13, 2004

Yes please keep us informed on what's happening behind the scenes. Is the server from Northrop? When will predictions be compared to the drawings? Curious minds wanna know. BobP

Hey BobP,
The Northrop computer is a workstation, which is really quite different from the server. (And vice-versa: a server is typically not really setup very well as a workstation.)
On the predictions question, there is a bit of work to do on capturing the results themselves and setting up a great database for everything. It's coming, but will realistically not be ready for a month or two. (I've got lots of other projects I'm working on simultaneously!)

By next morning you should be able to pluck the results off the USA Today
web site since it's not for a commercial purpose . . .

http://www.usatoday.com/news/lottery/lotto.htm

Or you could buy a feed from
http://www.lotteryfeed.com/
or
http://www.**don't post links**.com/
or
http://www.lottery.com/

BobP
Todd

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Chief Bottle Washer

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Feb 13, 2004, 10:46 pm

BobP,
Things are really not as easy as you think. Of course I can get lottery results from another web site. But why do you think there aren't a lot of sites doing what I'm doing here? If you would like to demonstrate how it's done, I will gladly follow your lead. Maybe I've done too much too quickly.

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Todd

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Chief Bottle Washer

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Feb 13, 2004, 10:51 pm

Oh yeah, another thing: maybe you want to donate the $1000 per month it would cost to buy a lottery feed. The more I think about your response the more mad it makes me.

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BobP

Dump Water Florida
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Feb 13, 2004, 11:13 pm

Todd: I don't do what you're doing because you're doing it so well already. I know Walmart likes to open across from K-mart, I don't think that way.

Sorry I had no idea it cost that much, figured that for a year. I'm pretty sure everyone pays a different amount depending on how the results are used, the lottery software companies aren't likely to be paying a grand a month, might be worth shopping around.

Prediction is a big draw and a lot of work if not automated. I'm not sure whether the work load figured into the demise of Maybell's, not sure it didn't as John used to complain about the work load occasionally.

Again, sorry about the implusive attempt to help. I'll stay out of your way in the future or leave if you prefer. BobP
Todd

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Chief Bottle Washer

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Feb 13, 2004, 11:17 pm

It was the complainers that led to the downfall of Maybells.
It takes a lot of life out of someone to run a site like this or Maybells, and complainers who take it for granted are like a stab in the heart.

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dvdiva

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Feb 14, 2004, 7:35 am

I dont think people realize how much the bandwidth costs popular sites. it climbs pretty fast depending on the provider.
that and scsi isn't cheap either- but it does have better server performance.
hypersoniq

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April 6, 2003
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Feb 14, 2004, 8:42 am

by all means keep us updated on the upgrade!
Thanks for all you have already done for us and for continually coming up with cool new features.

Have an EXCELlent day!
Millennium

NYC
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December 10, 2003
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Feb 14, 2004, 9:49 am

Yes, thanks for all your work thus far.

I was never at Maybells. Just heard about it here.

Hope your site continues to grow and prosper.

Now... what are these *other* sites you do? Playing around behind our backs, are you? Ha!
plnwebguy

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February 11, 2004
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Feb 14, 2004, 1:30 pm

Todd,
Good luck on the server upgrade - sounds like a killer system. If the forum could do sounds I'd insert a Tim Allen "grunt" :) Hope everything goes smooth - I've been in the upgrade position a time or two myself - sometimes they're smooth and sometimes not, but here's hoping all goes well. You know, if you ever get into the news feed thing yourself as a lottery news provider, let me know - like I'm sure others would, I'd buy a good lottery only news feed for my site at a reasonable price. I've looked around and the free ones are gambling in general and the lottery only ones are very expensive like you mentioned in one of your other posts.
plnwebguy
http://www.popularlotterynumbers.com

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