Lately, a lot of users have been eyeballing the Jamroom Cluster...but a large number of Jamroom users don't know what in the world it does other then convert video, or how to really utilize it to fully improve a site. Lets try to figure it all out! I'll give you a few ideas of how it can be used to save money, expand functionality of jamroom, and improve the performance of a Jamroom site.

First lets start with what exactly a "cluster" is. A cluster in the computer world, is basically a group of computers linked together to form what would appear to be 1 big computer. There are a number of advantages of a cluster. The first and most obvious, is that you get the power of multiple computers acting as 1 big computer, which means more power and power is needed to keep a site running fast and efficiently. So, now we know what a cluster is! A goup of computers linked together to make 1 big computer.

What the Jamroom cluster software does, is link together multiple servers to make 1 big computer running Jamroom! The cluster software itself supports file conversion, and artist profiles. In Jamroom, 2 things will take up the most space on your site. The first is the database. The database runs from the master server, always, as does email. These are 2 functions that require a lot of power, the database will grow as long as your site is online- keeping chart history, counts, and other data. The other thing that will take a lot of space, is your artists media files (mp3's, videos, pictures, etc...).

When you get the Jamroom cluster software, you can move your artist profiles to a seperate server, which will save space on your master server, and also free up some resources to improve the performance of your SQL server and email. Since all streaming and downloading of files will be handled by the cluster server that the profiles reside on- you can really free up a lot of resources on the master server as well as space- this is important and I will get to why later...

The cluster also enables remote file conversion. File conversion is _very_ resource intensive. Every time you convert a file, you are allocating resources to that conversion which will take away from your SQL and email resources. The bigger the file, the longer you take those resources away for. What can happen, is that the server can bottleneck if this gets to be too much- then your site becomes inaccessable. So using the cluster for file conversions is a simple best practice, but it is only a best practice if the cluster is on a seperate server from the master. Its nearly pointless to put the cluster on the same server as the master.

Now here is my suggestions on a best practice routine for performance and cost effectiveness of a Jamroom site.

1. The master server- all I would suggest running on the master server, is the Jamroom master. My suggestion would be to get the Cluster software immediately, and enable it as the default server so all artist profiles are created on the cluster, and also enable the converter on the cluster server.

This is important because you will immediately free up the master server to just perform. The master IS your jamroom site, don't bog it down! If all the Jamroom master has to do, is run the charts, control panel, email, and cluster communication- it will be extremely streamlined to perform as your sites front man.

2. The cluster server- put all artist and member profiles on a cluster, and enable file conversion on the cluster.

This is important because it will do all the file conversions for your site on the cluster. All the cluster has to do is stream artists songs, and run apache processes to open pages. There is no database, no email, or anything heavy running for the cluster. This is the perfect server for conversions. With the artist profiles on the cluster, files that are converted will be dropped straight in to the artists media folder- this means the file doesn't need to move as many times between servers making upload and conversion much faster. This also allows you to utilize lower powered machines for the cluster with more disk space...this results in lower expenses as you grow.

This setup is particularily effective for ANY site that consumes more then 2GB of disk space. Also, bear in mind that Jamroom can support as many clusters as you have licenses for. You could potentially have hundreds of clusters, which means you are no longer limited to the hardware limitations of a single server.

I mentioned a while ago about why its important to free up space on the master. Simple, being able to quickly backup and restore the master. If something bad happens, you want the master to be able to be restored quickly which will lower your downtime. The larger the master is, the longer it will take to backup and restore. Keeping the master slim will also provide easier management, maintenance routines, and lower the time for upgrading (because making a backup first will take less time). It is also important because your database is going to keep growing for as long as your Jamroom site is online. It makes more sense to just be aware of that now, and utilize the space of a seperate server to host media files on. This will also save you headache down the road, as your artists won't need to change their links to there artist pages which may be required when moving an artist to a different server. Since the cluster servers just do very mundane tasks, the cluster servers will already have a lot of extra power left for making backups of these much larger sections of your site.

For a turn-key solution, JBServers.net offers a Jamroom Hosting and Jamroom Cluster setup. It is impossible to outgrow this setup- you just add clusters as you go. Each cluster is a different physical server, and each time you add a cluster you are adding the power of another server to your site. JBServers.net has custom built the JR master/cluster network for infinite site growth with 10G private network connections between servers, high powered clusters for fast conversions, and preconfigured for turn-key setup and instant deployment of a cluster. This also provides a secured dedicated line for SQL communication between cluster servers. This is a good solution for users who want to be able to grow and expand without having to worry about future server investments and high costs with each new cluster which can make growth difficult. This gives you the right servers, configured the right way, to grow to any size. It is not possible to outgrow the JBServers.net network if you use the power of the Jamroom cluster software, and using the software will only enhance the performance of your Jamroom site.

If you have questions, always ask in the forums. There is a lot that can be done with cluster servers, and they can be tricky to understand at first...but just remember, that it's designed to make growing a Jamroom site easy- without it, you would have to do a lot of server trickery to link the computers together ;) Some people worry that Jamroom or a hosting server won't be able to support a sites growth. With the availability of the cluster software, a site cannot outgrow Jamroom.

I hope this helps!

Cheers!
~DJ