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IP.Board To cloud or not to cloud...

Discussion in 'Forum software usage' started by Colin, Oct 8, 2022.

  1. Colin

    Colin Premium Member Premium Member

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    Coming up on 20years for my forum (5m+), yay.
    They'd be off to university by now if Id not been so busy back then ;)

    Time comes when I find myself wondering, if I want to always be thinking about taking a laptop with me to fix any hosting issues. Or to avail of the new 'cloud' Invision are offering. It's AWS for invision in case folk didn't know.

    A part of me, wants to throw everything on them, and let the old emergency boot bag x230 sleep it's last sleep.

    A part of me does not want to trust my data to a saas platform I have to request a backup from. I invisiage the day something happens and I've lost it all.


    Also means moving from a top level domain/forums to a forums.domain, or hand over my domain nameservers to them too. Apart from the SEO hit, I'd likely move all my supporting apps/mail etc to a new domain, like a .uk one or whatever.

    I'm quite torn.

    To that end, while it's going to ultimately cost me slightly more on the monthlys, I'm pushing out to other saas, so bonsai for elastic search, linode managed mysql, can then try to wrestle invison into a load balanced setup. It's all a single node atm, which has been surpisngly robust on linode.

    That pushing out to smaller saas services in my mind, is peace of mind, that the boot bag x230 can perhaps not be a thing to worry about.

    I'd also happily pay someone to be a infrastructre admin, should I find myself at the bottom of a mountain face with bandages on :)

    Anyone any thoughts on to cloud or not to cloud, similar feelings, position?
     
  2. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Congrats 20yrs is a LOOOONG time :D

    Haven't followed Invision much so didn't know they have a new cloud hosting via AWS - wow those prices Sign up for Invision Community

    Define Cloud hehe. By some folk's definition, Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean, and Upcloud are cloud providers :)

    I started playing with Terraform on Upcloud to automate Centmin Mod testing for EL8/EL9 OSes GitHub - centminmod/upcloud-terraform: Upcloud Terraform Server creation with upctl cli command line tool set and realised this should be a part of what a proper Cloud provider is. Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean, and Upcloud all support Terraform too. As to Amazon AWS and also Cloudflare. I plan to work on my Terraform skills with all these hosts

    Personally, being a control freak, I'd have a lot of trouble giving up such control over my forums/site/data :D

    Don't forget scaling out to multiple servers/hosts just means more potentials for failures too :)

    One reason I have my forums on Linode too - cpu/mem might not be the fastest but the disk storage layer resilience is top notch. Over the years having one click migration of Linodes to another server at very fast speeds when there's Linode server issues and being able to clone Linodes for testing etc is :cool:
     
  3. Colin

    Colin Premium Member Premium Member

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    Oh very aware that +1 = doubling of downtime risk. have been testing 3node on lined and up space and even planet scale.

    Actually encountering a total lack of ssl support for invision hasn't helped. Fun times, it turns out I had the same problem in 2018; love finding old posts you have no memory of making. So that's making using a hosted db quite difficult. Without having to use sqlproxy. Just another cog.

    re cloud definition, lol yes, well it's all the cloud now isn't it, I think my kettle is cloud enabled. j/k.

    A software vendors cloud product, vs well the cloud.

    Very much struggling to give up control, but equally feeling the drag of responsibility ;)
     
  4. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    You mean SSL for MySQL remote connectivity right ? Probably need something like ProxySQL then.
    That is the nature of how we roll I guess :) Looks like they're moved the forums around a bit so this forum is relevant Advanced Self-Hosting Assistance
     
  5. cloud9

    cloud9 Premium Member Premium Member

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    @Colin Well after many many years with IPS - I left them over a year ago, maybe two

    There cloud sucks - they promise you the earth and it doesnt happen - getting a back up from the at times is like getting blood from a stone - in my case they wouldn't give me a backup unless I had another license to install it on - ie GUN TO HEAD buy another license

    There prices are now ridiculous, a lot off add on developers were not happy with some of their actions and left

    They will also be leaving all their self hosted customer in the lurch soon I am sure and just want cloud customer paying a premium price and dont want the small fry

    I raised lots of genuine issues on their customer forums about the cloud support I was not getting and the problems, they deleted all my threads and asked me not to post in public and to raise a ticket, they then didnt help on the tickets and just gave me the run around, basically they stitched me right up and then didnt want to take responsibility for their actions, the thread deleter with the warnings was one of the founders......

    After two months of hell, I bought 3 XF licenses and left IPS for good, best move I ever made now I have been using XF for a while, and its a hell of a lot cheaper with much better support

    They (IPS) used to be customer focused, but basically now its its all about the money and the bigger fish

    Thats my experience after a 10+ year long 4 license IPS customer, one forum was very large which is why I moved from a dedicated to cloud to offload some of the headache, it then became a bigger headache.....

    There is also a lot of issues with their cloud - and that sucks also - lots of downtime and they dont take responsibility and their stats show no downtime, you cant ftp to it either

    It was a long time ago and I cant remember it all but I was well stressed and well pi$$ed off with them
     
  6. rdan

    rdan Well-Known Member

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    That's very bad experience :(

    It seems that for premium PHP-based forums, XenForo is still the best choice.
    Not sure about their cloud, unless Eva managed it for them :D.

    But on the other hand, I'm also disappointed with the very slow development of XF.
    Lots of bugs are unresolved, and with only 2 full-time developers now.

    :|
     
  7. Colin

    Colin Premium Member Premium Member

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    @cloud9 thank you so much for that reply.

    I've been trying to get info out of them, and it was the blood out of the stone. Like a simple how long, lead time on conversion, so I can, you know plan it... I've paused discussion with them at the moment I just don't trust them. Your comments have helped :) Being out of my control and not able to recover from it would be a nightmare.

    Technically I was ok with not being able to alter anything or upload beyond there own market place. *if* what they promised was delivered. I'd of been wanting a backup daily. Can you imagine that happening! :D

    I've had a few and actually re-activated my XF license. Then had a fun day with some of the beastly VPS's doing the migration <2hours on a 48core box...

    I'd have to agree on support and issue raising. I've not done a huge amount, but those I have, well ignored is too kind. Sent them a patch to there s3 setup to protect s3 buckets from open access. Still like it 4years later, costly.

    Still switching is a 'nuclear' option, big upheaval... but free pies at a meet up might make up for it. New members won't know the difference etc.

    @rdan yes the slow pace and sense of needing more plugins is the contra to the mire of the ips security; maybe...

    I do regret not going to xf years ago in the great vb exedous.
    They're presently working up a migration cost to carry over our subscribers, maybe I could work it out in sql, or do by hand. Depending on how much it is, ie doable, I'd make it a free add or donate it back to them.
    With Mike leaving, their pace will be slowed. The real risk there is stalling/collapse, but it will still work unlike ips callbacks. However there are almost no other real choices. Looked at woltlab burning boards a good few years back, I liked it, team didn't.

    @eva2000 yes sorry I did. And yes proxysql running on our test install between upcloud and linode :) Few gotchas on mysql8, but seems to work otherwise.
     
  8. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Ouch was going to suggest switch to Xenforo for @Colin to save the headaches and your experience definitely confirms my feelings :)
    haha - hosting is a hard business to manage!
    To be fair past 2+ years with Covid pandemic hasn't helped!
    Woah Mike leaving?
     
  9. rdan

    rdan Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: Oct 9, 2022
  10. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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  11. buik

    buik “The best traveler is one without a camera.”

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    I am absolutely not a fan of this kind of (all-in) services. Lots of bla bla but do they deliver? I have no experience with this service specifically. But do have experience with external services that would take certain tasks off my hands and others. Both professional as well as charity. But later failed. Despite a solid SLA: Then you'll hang.

    Looking (roughly reading through) at their SLA I don't see uptime guarantees anywhere but I do see the following passage:

    That could mean that as much as 72 hours can pass before problems are resolved.
    72 hours of downtime fits into this as well. After all, problems are not specified.

    Given the reviews on the internet about Invision Community, reactions are hmmmm........
    The problem seems to be that you pay to hand things over but apparently still get to go solve your own issues.

    Always make sure private keys etc. both professional as well as charity. Are available with others (securely) (if you haven't already). Should something happen to you.

    Unfortunately experienced this myself with others who had unfortunately died unexpectedly, and without documentation and or/access to. Is it very difficult to make anything more of it.

    Closing with the fact that I feel that you are or are beginning to be in a different phase of life. But you are either wondering if you still want to do this current life thing. Understandable. But don't make an over-hasty decision, should you, current life fulfillment be fed up.
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2022