Look at my new hardware!

Just yesterday I was commenting on how machines do not define me…but I have to admit, I do sort of dig technology too.  Just to be clear, I plan to use a lot of buzz-words and mumbo jumbo to astound you with my computer savy…isn’t that what computer people do?  Anyhow, I think there may be some interesting bits for computer neophytes as well.

I had been running this blog on an old 1.4 ghz desktop machine with 512 mb of ram and a 20 gb harddrive.  This machine was pieced together from parts we had laying around the office and was never supposed to be exposed to the public.  But, as with most computer projects, the prototype became the product and sure enough, this blog was turned on with the power and support of “ole Bessie”.    

By trade, I am a software engineer…I write computer software for a living.  I don’t know a lot about computer hardware.  I just assume the hardware works.  Asking me to choose computer hardware is like asking your autobody guy to rebuild your engine…it might be successful, but it is probably not ideal.  So, a few weeks ago, Dell had a sale on Poweredge SC440 small business servers.  A hardware friend/coworker of mine mentioned that it was a good deal and might serve as a good replacement for “Bessie”.  The sale price of the machine was $199.  I upped the memory a little and got the whole thing delivered for $252.!  It has 2 gb of ram, a dual core 2 ghz pentium processor and an 80 gb harddrive.  Ahh, much better!  So I migrated the blog from “Bessie” to “Vader” (more about that later). 

Now, let me tell you, 8 servers in a 10×10 room put off a powerful lot of heat.  Yup, I have 8 servers in my office.  My current project needs 4 servers to function.  I have a couple of extras for testing, etc.  Adding this new server raised my heat by one machine.  I am somewhat worried about going through a Bruce Banner change.  I don’t think these machines put off gamma rays, but I’d also rather not turn into the incredible hulk either.  

Anyhow, migrating a wordpress blog from one machine to another is really pretty simple also.  I spent about 4 days making it complicated but it need not be.  Basically, I installed WAMP which is the webserver and database programs that run the website.  I just installed it with all of the default settings.  I did not install wordpress on the new machine.  Instead, I copied the entire WAMP directory (c:\wamp\…it includes the web server, database and wordpress files) from my original machine to the same directory on my new machine.  Restart the webserver and we’re in business.  I read all sorts of opinions on how to do backups and migration plans and how to properly sacrifice a chicken over the old and/or new servers.  I tried some of those things (well, not the chicken part) and none of those options really worked.  WordPress and WAMP will run on windows but are not really Windows-based so I figured that they probably didn’t have the invasive installation mess that most Windows programs have (i.e. I figured I would just copy stuff over and hope it works).  Sure enough, I was right!  So, after fooling around for 4 days with no success, I punted and in 8 minutes, my blog was migrated!  I don’t know if you can tell the increase in speed, but please humor me and say you can!  Wahoo!