The Impact Of Three Minor ACP Changes To Server Load Averages
 

I was beginning to stress the CPU with an average load of 15% on my VPS account, obviously don't want to have to upgrade again so soon, considering I just did so only two months ago, so I looked within my ACP settings for solutions. I'm usually pretty good and leave all the bells and whistles turned off so that users get a nice fast experience, though I did have a couple of things still running, being:

• > Automatic Similar Thread Search in conjunction with > Show Similar Threads?
• Tags were running, though don't think they had a major impact, and
• > GZIP output

Taking out those few last factors that I had running, that weren't exactly essential, has taken my average CPU from around 15% average load down to 3% average load with just over 60k of monthly visitors. I now have every single aspect that vBulletin has recommended as server / load heavy turned off, with maximum throughput and able to maintain my current VPS without having to upgrade further.

I have to say I am a little astounded at just how much a few minor ACP changes can make to the server load averages, thus my ability to maintain a little lower costs for a little longer... milking my current system for everything its worth basically.

I tend to get into that realm with each upgrade, being when I get more CPU I turn server intensive apps back on for a while, then when user growth determines load I turn them back off to get a little longer out of further upgrades.

I hope some of this helps others realise some aspects you may be using are going to hurt you in the pocket that you can control, and also would like to hear from others with their experiences on how to get the best from their installs. I have always tried to follow best practices advice on here and from the server techs on here... which certainly seems to be working for me.