Big Board launch

I am maintaining few IPB message boards for the past couple of years. Recently I was approached by a person who believes in making huge profits through Bulletin Board. He like to invest on us to take care of launch and maintenance.

Investor target is to reach 100k uniques within 6 months of launch and million uniques/day by end of the year. He is willing to spend on promoting ..

I need to submit him detailed report covering every aspect. I am aware of maintaining message boards but i am not that good at server side like

server configurations
Fine tuning servers to eliminate un-necessary loads
what kinda of software & versions
multiple server configuration
Protecting from hackers

I really like to see a documentation which clearly explains how to maintain boards with very high traffic like 10k concurrent users at any time .

I like to hear suggestions from big board maintainers ..

[mute]

My suggestion to you is to not bother looking for clear documentation on how to maintain a very high traffic board -- it just doesn't exist.

As the maintainer of one of the largest forums out there, I can tell you that to support a million unique visitors and 10k online, you are going to need a very significant hardware budget, and a dedicated staff as those goals are not easy to attain.

[eandhra]

Mute, you are exactly right that maintaining that kinda traffic is not easy.
We are already planned a team ( a php programmer, a web designer, a board admin, a promoter and couple of SEO experts) .. Only expertise we didn't have at this moment is the person who can take care of server side setup & maintenance.

I really like to know, what kinda of issues will come-up once traffic is increasing. Once we launch and growing, I don't like to see this project failure just because we are not able to handle the traffic .. So I want to make sure we have clear blue-print to take care of huge traffic ..

[jason|xoxide]

I'm curious as to exactly what kind of content you're planning on hosting where you thing you can get 1 million unique users per day within 1 year...

In any case, you probably want to talk to Shawn Hogan @ Digital Point. Most of his traffic is NOT from his forums but recently mentioned that he deals with about 125 million page views per day and that traffic is growing about 10% each and every month.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184748

[Romeos Tune]

Probably a scam... I'd be really careful.

[eandhra]

Originally Posted by jason|xoxide

I'm curious as to exactly what kind of content you're planning on hosting where you thing you can get 1 million unique users per day within 1 year...

In any case, you probably want to talk to Shawn Hogan @ Digital Point. Most of his traffic is NOT from his forums but recently mentioned that he deals with about 125 million page views per day and that traffic is growing about 10% each and every month.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184748

Informative link ..
But, i didn't get it all of it..

I would like to see step-by-step instructions on setting up larger server framework because I am the one will end-up maintaining the server side activities, so I like to learn as much as possible the whole server side maintainence ...

[jason|xoxide]

Originally Posted by eandhra

Informative link ..
But, i didn't get it all of it..

I would like to see step-by-step instructions on setting up larger server framework because I am the one will end-up maintaining the server side activities, so I like to learn as much as possible the whole server side maintainence ...

Sorry, but you're not going to find that kind of information. This board is really for people who are looking for tips, not a start-to-finish guide.

Simply put, assuming that this job is legit, if you don't already have the general knowledge and skills to run a large site then you're probably out of luck.

[alexi]

I wish there was an end to end guide! It surely would have made my life much simpler
You are going to need to find an experienced vbulletin server administrator

[vbullfan]

Yes it's an everyday challenge to run a "big board." And the challenge is highly underestimated (I know I underestimated it). You can no longer run on uncle Jim's extra server and have your friend from vborg install new hacks for you. You need a skilled team of experienced vb guys because one inefficiency in the code can setoff table lock. And your hardware will not be cheap nor will the technical support to keep it running. It's a rewarding experience to run a vb, but the challenge is not to be underestimated.