What Kind Of Servers Does Geocaching.com use?

March 23, 2007

What kind of servers do you use

Database

OS

What is GUI stuff writtern in? Java, VB...Cobol (just kidding)?

5.2k · March 23, 2007

Here is a post from 2.5 years ago describing the farm at that time. I think there has only been minor changes since then.

There is also this note from a month ago in the Announcements forum giving an update regarding performance.

I think most of the site is .NET.

March 23, 2007

I found this which explains the heart of the system.

March 23, 2007

Fine Tuning.......

http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/865

March 23, 2007

I found this which explains the heart of the system.

Think I found one of those in a cache once.

March 24, 2007

An insider has leaked a picture of the upgrade in progress.

Notice the old system next to the new bigger improved system.

2.3k · March 26, 2007

I think it's fair to say that the servers that Groundspeak uses are:

1. Broken.

2. Not able to handle even 10% of the traffic they get each day from all over the world. :laughing:

3. Made out of tinkertoy plastic parts, and soup cans with string for the network connection.

Good luck if you get a list of 50 geocoins at an event 2 months ago and have the time even once to get more than a couple of them logged before the server goes down. I have given up on logging that list.

No matter what time of day, I have hit the trouble in each of the 24 hours that a day has, not all in the same day of course and not all from the same computer.

An other current thread states that the servers have been getting better lately, ha, ha, I think he's being intentionally untruthful in his assessment. If anything, they are getting worse and worse.

I have let my premium membership lapse due to the waste of time that I have to go through each time I need to use the web site. I kind of miss the pocket queries and have visited several members only caches (from my GSAK databases) that I can't log but think I will never give another cent to Groundspeak,

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

18.9k · March 26, 2007

I think it's fair to say that the servers that Groundspeak uses are:

1. Broken.

2. Not able to handle even 10% of the traffic they get each day from all over the world.

3. Made out of tinkertoy plastic parts, and soup cans with string for the network connection.

Good luck if you get a list of 50 geocoins at an event 2 months ago and have the time even once to get more than a couple of them logged before the server goes down. I have given up on logging that list.

No matter what time of day, I have hit the trouble in each of the 24 hours that a day has, not all in the same day of course and not all from the same computer.

An other current thread states that the servers have been getting better lately, ha, ha, I think he's being intentionally untruthful in his assessment. If anything, they are getting worse and worse.

I have let my premium membership lapse due to the waste of time that I have to go through each time I need to use the web site. I kind of miss the pocket queries and have visited several members only caches (from my GSAK databases) that I can't log but think I will never give another cent to Groundspeak,

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

Whoa there.

I rarely if ever see the kinds of trouble you are decribing. While I have seen an occsional "server busy" message and slow response time, I am able to use the site to the fullest well over 95% of the time. And they are working on making that number much better. Might look into some other issue causing the level of difficulty you describe.

7.3k · March 26, 2007

I think it's fair to say that the servers that Groundspeak uses are:

1. Broken.

2. Not able to handle even 10% of the traffic they get each day from all over the world.

3. Made out of tinkertoy plastic parts, and soup cans with string for the network connection.

You forgot the hamsters.

7.2k · March 26, 2007

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

That was actually my favorite part. We just hit user number one million just a couple of weeks ago, yes? Now we have *MILLIONS* (said like Dr. Evil) of people on the site? :laughing: These *MILLIONS* of people are all fed up? Give me a break. I've only seen a handful of people "fed up" myself. While a single person who is fed up is too much, painting it as *MILLIONS* is possibly a touch excessive.

8k · March 26, 2007

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

That was actually my favorite part. We just hit user number one million just a couple of weeks ago, yes? Now we have *MILLIONS* (said like Dr. Evil) of people on the site? These *MILLIONS* of people are all fed up? Give me a break. I've only seen a handful of people "fed up" myself. While a single person who is fed up is too much, painting it as *MILLIONS* is possibly a touch excessive.

Hyperbole is the norm for the forums. Still, it is understandable why people find it frustrating when the website times out or gives and error when you are logging your finds. Often you type in a long log describing your hunt and it gets lost when the site doesn't respond or gives an error. Experienced cachers learn to save their logs locally before trying to post them or use a browser that will restore the data in the form when you press the back button. Even then, if you're trying to get your logs entered before your favorite TV show starts you will find the delays intolerable.

Most people don't have an understanding of what a website like Geocaching.com that is allowing users to add and update to the site content has to do to be scalable. Much larger sites like Google and Amazon hardly ever time out, so why does Geocaching.com?

The problems of a site like Geocaching.com can not be solved by simply throwing more hardware at them. This works for a while but soon has diminishing returns. When you log a find you are updating the database against which the entire user community can query. In addition, the site has to guard against two users logging the same cache at the same time. These requirements lead to a bottleneck where updates to database must be done as transactions to guarantee the database is consistent when queried by other users. Unless the database is designed up front with these consideration is impossible to scale to large numbers of simulataneous users. What is happening, it that many people are trying to update the geocaching database at the same time. Some of these requests are rejected with a 'Server Busy Error' and others simply wait in a queue to be processed resulting in what appears to a slow server. I'm sure that the consultants that Jeremy has hired have their hands full with figuring out a design that can continue to scale as geocaching grows and that the current database can be migrated to without having to shutdown updates for a significant amount of time. In the meantime, the Groundspeak staff is struggling to keep the current system running.

edit: Jeremy posted an update this morning that I missed.

Edited March 26, 2007 by tozainamboku

6.4k · March 26, 2007

I think it's fair to say that the servers that Groundspeak uses are:

1. Broken.

2. Not able to handle even 10% of the traffic they get each day from all over the world.

3. Made out of tinkertoy plastic parts, and soup cans with string for the network connection.

Good luck if you get a list of 50 geocoins at an event 2 months ago and have the time even once to get more than a couple of them logged before the server goes down. I have given up on logging that list.

No matter what time of day, I have hit the trouble in each of the 24 hours that a day has, not all in the same day of course and not all from the same computer.

An other current thread states that the servers have been getting better lately, ha, ha, I think he's being intentionally untruthful in his assessment. If anything, they are getting worse and worse.

I have let my premium membership lapse due to the waste of time that I have to go through each time I need to use the web site. I kind of miss the pocket queries and have visited several members only caches (from my GSAK databases) that I can't log but think I will never give another cent to Groundspeak,

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

Whoa there.

I rarely if ever see the kinds of trouble you are decribing. While I have seen an occsional "server busy" message and slow response time, I am able to use the site to the fullest well over 95% of the time. And they are working on making that number much better. Might look into some other issue causing the level of difficulty you describe.

My experience is pretty much the same as Starbrand's.

Interesting that you feel that not contributing a single penny to the site yet still putting the same load on it will somehow make things run better better.

I know it will never happen, but I'd love to see the trillions of people who don't contribute a thing to the site get locked out. Is that harsh enough?

2.3k · March 27, 2007

The cost of Premium membership is NOT so that the servers and suchforth WORK better for all those concerned. It's for EXTRA benefits. I do miss Pocket querries and Members Only caches (mostly for FTF's but also for the Audit List of viewers of your cache). So far, after my lapsing, I have not experienced any other mind shattering losses of ability, other than just plain old connecting to the various servers nearly every time I want to log a cache or coin or do a search or just plain read the logs of friends at caches I know of and/or have been to...

Geocaching is a fun FREE sport as had once read somewhere on the web site but can't find right now.

I for one would love it if the, pinky to lips "Millions", of users were just plain old Basic members. Especially those who give the sport a bad name such as the Portsmouth debaucle. I have joined the Cape Cod, and the Connecticut, and the Southern New England and the New Hampshire user groups, all of which wish there were a way for cache planters to have a MENTOR or otherwise be educated before planting 20 caches after only finding their very first one, an example that I'm not exagerating about.

If Groundspeak were concerned about costs they would be constantly raising the cost of membership and be forcing REQUIRED membership upon cachers after say 100 finds or a few months of caching or something just as despicable, but they are not and it's great for all those, Carl Sagan'ish Billions and Billions, well not right now but sooner than you think.

As Woody Allen once didn't say, I would hate to be a member of a club that would require me to pay for membership and allow people like me to be members.

2.3k · March 27, 2007

And not to be coy or anything, I think it's great that there are a Million users, that's a stat that should be on the top page along with:

There are 374788 active caches worldwide.

In the last 7 days, there have been 259945 new logs written by 38059 account holders. (as of 070327 1800EDT )

But, I know for a fact that there are LOTS of usernames that have 0 cache finds and 0 trackables and 0 photos in their gallery and 0 bookmarks (but that's not a mystery) and 0 embelishment in the main part of their profile.

This is either similar to buying up domain names in the expectation of using them in the future, or just plain users who join almost immediately deciding to change their name (due to that feature going away long ago). And another reason I can think of but won't state in an effort not to give people ideas. Cleaning out those probably wouldn't have any impact in the databases and servers and it probably would be hard to know completely inactive from very low hobbyists.

Oh, and I just discovered the following statistics which are great but should be more accessable:

305 user(s) active in the past 15 minutes

Active Users 152 guests, 141 members 12 anonymous members

Board Stats Our members have made a total of 2,419,527 posts

We have 211,161 registered members

Most users ever online was 688 on Mar 10 2007, 02:18 PM

Gee, I wonder if 2 and a half weeks ago was one of my slow days, ha ha.

Edited March 27, 2007 by trainlove

21.9k · March 27, 2007

Hello,

Just a reminder that the topic of this thread is "What Kind of Servers does Geocaching.com use?"

Please stay on topic. There is a pinned thread for reporting and discussing site performance issues. These are, by and large, database issues rather than server space or bandwidth issues.

3.5k · March 28, 2007

C# or VB.Net? 1.1 or 2.0?

March 28, 2007

Audit List of viewers of your cache

How do you do that?

March 28, 2007

C# or VB.Net? 1.1 or 2.0?

By the error logs, I would Guess C# and .NET v1.1, and most likely a MS SQL back end...

3k · March 28, 2007

Over 1,000,000 served! Wow.

I'd imagine the server would look like this:

20.7k · March 28, 2007

The cost of Premium membership is NOT so that the servers and suchforth WORK better for all those concerned. ...

If that's true, how do you expect Jeremy and friends to afford their bologna sandwiches and koolaid? The cost of premium memberships, among other things, pays for the site. It pays the salaries of Groundspeak employees. It pays for hardware and software. It pays for supplies. It also pays for the super-enriched hampster food that is needed to keep the servers up and running so you can log each and every geocoin you ever saw.

Edited to add my apology to Keystone. I posted without reading all the way down the thread.

Edited March 28, 2007 by sbell111

March 28, 2007

By the error logs, I would Guess C# and .NET v1.1, and most likely a MS SQL back end...

That explains a lot about why it's so slow! :lostsignal:

2.3k · March 28, 2007

Audit List of viewers of your cache

How do you do that?

If you make a cache that's a members only cache, right there just under your cache name is a link to the audit list. For example:

As Easy as PI

[Click to temporarily disable]

by trainlove & GPScouts [profile]

This is a subscriber-only cache.

Read the audit log (see who viewed your cache)

This shows you everyone who has looked at your cache and the number of times they have looked. But that's not totally true since you can pocket querry caches and look at it using only GSAK. This is a members only feature.

but of course this is off topic.

Edited March 28, 2007 by trainlove

10.1k · March 31, 2007

Servers? I thought this place ran on lackeys! :laughing:

1.1k · March 31, 2007

It is our job to feed the hamsters and take them for walks.

2.7k · March 31, 2007

And not to be coy or anything, I think it's great that there are a Million users, that's a stat that should be on the top page along with:

There are 374788 active caches worldwide.

In the last 7 days, there have been 259945 new logs written by 38059 account holders. (as of 070327 1800EDT )

But, I know for a fact that there are LOTS of usernames that have 0 cache finds and 0 trackables and 0 photos in their gallery and 0 bookmarks (but that's not a mystery) and 0 embelishment in the main part of their profile.

This is either similar to buying up domain names in the expectation of using them in the future, or just plain users who join almost immediately deciding to change their name (due to that feature going away long ago). And another reason I can think of but won't state in an effort not to give people ideas. Cleaning out those probably wouldn't have any impact in the databases and servers and it probably would be hard to know completely inactive from very low hobbyists.

Oh, and I just discovered the following statistics which are great but should be more accessable:

305 user(s) active in the past 15 minutes

Active Users 152 guests, 141 members 12 anonymous members

Board Stats Our members have made a total of 2,419,527 posts

We have 211,161 registered members

Most users ever online was 688 on Mar 10 2007, 02:18 PM

Gee, I wonder if 2 and a half weeks ago was one of my slow days, ha ha.

For some people it isn't about the numbers. There are a few names in my area that I've seen in cache log books but their online profiles show no caches found and they have been active for years.

Getting back to the topic at hand.

The OS is obviously a Windows OS because of the use of .net.

I'm not sure what language but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Visual Studio is used to create and manage the site.

6.5k · March 31, 2007

...

I have let my premium membership lapse due to the waste of time that I have to go through each time I need to use the web site. I kind of miss the pocket queries and have visited several members only caches (from my GSAK databases) that I can't log but think I will never give another cent to Groundspeak,

Is that harsh enough? Millions of people are fed up.

You could log those MOCs without being a premium member. You just need to play with the url... Its explained more IN THIS POST (and other duplicates too).

Of course if all the servers are broken you won't be able to log even with that 'trick'...

Or you may not even be able to read that other thread....

Hey! can you read this post, or is that broken too? :smile: :huh:

2.3k · April 5, 2007

You could log those MOCs without being a premium member. You just need to play with the url... Its explained more IN THIS POST (and other duplicates too).

Of course if all the servers are broken you won't be able to log even with that 'trick'...

Or you may not even be able to read that other thread....

Hey! can you read this post, or is that broken too?

Thanks, I had heard of that but not searched it out. WH is someone I have met several times and will talk more in-depth stuff now that I know he's such a hacker. If I knew there was a forum topic about this I would have searched it out. But I wasn't conocerned about logging the few members only caches that are still in my GSAK database.

But on forum searching, there is one thing that I can't find any forum mention of and have heard from several people. I won't ask that here as it's off topic. So perhaps seeking out the members only logging 'bug' might not have been too fruitful unless I accidently run across it.

And the forums seem to be the one service at geocaching.com that never seems to have trouble, oops :laughing: I should knock on wood before that breaks. But seriously, whatever platforms, operating system, language that are used for the fourms should also be used for geocaching then there would be no trouble for us to bitch about.

7.2k · April 5, 2007

And the forums seem to be the one service at geocaching.com that never seems to have trouble, oops I should knock on wood before that breaks. But seriously, whatever platforms, operating system, language that are used for the fourms should also be used for geocaching then there would be no trouble for us to bitch about.

First of all, as has been mentioned many times in other topics, the forum server is it's own server. Considering that the forums are not used nearly as much as the main site, I would hope that they are not configured the same way. The most users ever online on the forums was 987 yesterday (you can find this at the bottom of the main forum page. You can go to the bank on the fact that there are way more than that trying to hit the site when the site hits it slowdowns.

Edited to add that the number of registered forum members vs. register members on the site is an indication of use too. Over 1,000,000 register users on the site vs. 212,986 registered users on the forums. Most have never posted here either.

Edited April 5, 2007 by mtn-man

2.2k · April 5, 2007

It is our job to feed the hamsters and take them for walks.

you take them for walks? :laughing: no wonder the site slows down. yer wasting their energy on walks, then they are too tired to run in the wheels.

yeesh!

2.3k · April 6, 2007

Last time, in this very thead when I mentioned stats I was told to stay on topic 'What Kind of Servers Does Geocaching.Com Use'.

This last post of mine was to reiterate that I know that the forums run on different servers (UNIX or a variety of Linux is my belief due to something I've noticed). And hoped that geocaching.com could go to something similar instead of a Bill Gates designed OS.

Of the over million geocacing users, I'm sure more than half are ghosts. Whle of the over 200K fourm registeree's I'm sure there are few if any ghosts. I forget if one can post as a guest. But I know one can't get into this top thread folder (Web...). And I know that using the search feature only works well or at all if youre logged in. And I think othe majority of the geocachers who like to bitch on things and flame people are the majority of the 200K+ forum users, perhaps half while half are ligitamtely trying to get help.

It would be great if the # of members logged into the forums was recorded once an hour and plotted so that one could make an educated guess as to when there are geocaching server issues.

knock on wood, or knock on woodchuck, or perhaps knock on hampsters. Don't let P.E.T.A. hear that, or M.E.A.T. Men for Ethical Animal Treatment yum.

8k · April 6, 2007

There are four types of posters to threads about server problems at geocaching.com:

the wise poster asks about the plans that Geocaching.com has to improve performance by adding faster hardware and updating the backend database code so that queries run faster.
the wicked poster asks "Why are you using the OS and database that you use? Don't you know that everthing invented by Bill Gates is evil?"
the simple poster asks "Why is Geocaching slow and I can't access it. Would it help if I paid more for my premium membership?"
the innocent poster says "What problems? I can log my caches; sometimes I just need to wait a little longer."

5.2k · April 6, 2007

This last post of mine was to reiterate that I know that the forums run on different servers (UNIX or a variety of Linux is my belief due to something I've noticed).

Look again.

--- contacting host forums.Groundspeak.com [66.150.167.145] on port 80

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Type: text/html

Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.4

2.3k · April 7, 2007

It would seem to me that at this point the question has been asked and answered. This thread is becoming a performance issue instead of a hardware issue. Perhaps its time to close this one and move the chat to the pinned thread about site speed.

April 7, 2007

It would seem to me that at this point the question has been asked and answered. This thread is becoming a performance issue instead of a hardware issue. Perhaps its time to close this one and move the chat to the pinned thread about site speed.

OK....I saw some answers through the thread...Thanks.

Edited April 7, 2007 by GURU4HIRE

7.2k · April 7, 2007

I'll take that as an OK from the OP to close the topic.

What Kind Of Servers Does Geocaching.com use?

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