New Webserver for BlenderNation

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helium-thumb.jpgBlenderNation started as an experiment in blogging three months ago. By now, the site receives some 5500 unique visitors per day and the combination of a 10 year old 300Mhz server and a cable modem didn’t quite cut it anymore.

Today, I moved the website to a new webserver at a professional hosting service. Everything went pretty smoothly and the site should now be much faster for everyone.

Depending on your network, you may notice that you have been moved to a www2 address; this is only a temporary measure that I had to take to guarantee that we had no downtime on the site. Please don’t link to this address.

A big thanks to Jeroen of Anywise, my hosting partner, for making this such a smooth ride!

Now that we’re safe and sound on the new server, I’m not afraid to show you what the old one looks like. This is the same server that we used to gather the 100,000 Euros that Ton needed to buy the software from the investors in order to open source Blender, and the one that has hosted vrotvrot.com for more than 8 years. Ton and I lovingly call it ‘Vrotje’ :-)

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    • Killer clown guy

      Is that your attic, it looks exactly like my room, computers and all. I have 16 233Mhz P2s that I found in a school dumpster. I will someday take over the world with my army of old computers hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

      Anyway, congrats on moving the site to a new server.

    • kries

      blendernation is a great site
      and that server farm in the attic is
      absolutely
      saugeil!

      thanks for sharing ;-)

    • http://www.go2cubc.org pastorJohn

      Absolutely cool setup. I haven’t commented before, but I have blendernation on my live bookmarks toolbar on Firefox. I check in daily to see what is going on. I love this site.

      I am a Blender wannabe, and I use your site to keep up on what’s going on in the Blender community until I have adequate time to sit down and really learn to Blend. Keep up the good work!!

    • TroutMaskReplica

      big fan of the blog. you have also cured the blender.org main page of its stagnant feel with the live feed. very cool.

      now, by ‘moved to a new server’, do you mean another derelict pc in the attic or have you gone with a webhosting service?

    • TroutMaskReplica

      edit: oops. missed the link to Anywise in your post. nevermind

    • oto

      Rest in peace Vrotje! You did a good job :)

    • http://www.harkyman.com harkyman

      I think Vrotje should be retired and memorialized. Maybe pull our the mainboard, mount it behind glass inside a nice picture frame.

    • http://www.nathan.nl.tt JD-Multi

      Hehehe, that cool that such an old machine can run a lot. Same here, I got a pentium 166 mhz machine with 16 mb-ram that runs my webserver, except that it can’t run mysql, but well it’s fine for now. Btw, what internet connection did you have to run blendernation on that 300 mhz machine?

    • http://www.blendernation.com bart

      I’ve passed all your compliments to Vrotje :) I’ll keep it in use for my personal experiments, but it will have *much* less work..

      @JD-Multi: I ran the site on a 8MB downstream/1MB upstream connection. The new site is on a 2MB line (I think), but it allows bursts of much higher traffic.

    • theblenderboy

      what does ‘Vrotje’ mean? or is it just a name?

      pardon my lack of knowledge. :)

      -theblenderboy

    • http://www.blendernation.com bart

      It’s just a name.. It appeared somewhere during my time at university when we were *really* drunk I guess ;-)

    • well

      well isn’t that the right time to add a modell of Vrotje to the blender nag contest? Or to include it directly, similar to suzanne?

    • epat

      hey! I run blender on a 10(or near enough) year old 300MHZ pc!
      - I might turn mine into a webserver for fun when I eventually buy myself a new one!

    • Peter

      If that is your attic, as an officer of my firebrigade I would just like to say how much of a firehazard that setup is. I have seen at least three houses burn to the ground for setups just like this. Although where I come from (australia) it is much hotter near the roof, it is still a major hazard and I suggest you check your insurance policy or move the setup.

    • Daniel

      @Peter:

      Way to ruin the spirit! =P

      ;)