Updating Forum Software?, What do you guys think? Options

[Coomer]

There have been some concerns regarding speed and performance on the site, and I've had some personal concerns regarding security, scalability, and stability. Also, it's usually cool to have the latest version of software that includes new features and such.

So I'm considering upgrading the 6GC forum software.

However, this is not such an easy thing to do. I have tons of custom work invested in the current version of the forums. Also, the database structure has been heavily modified to accommodate integration of the forums with the rest of the site.

The biggest hurdle that comes to mind immediately is the user reputation/feedback system. This is a very custom piece of work and would require a ton of work to get it integrated into a new version of the forums. What do you guys think about not having it immediately integrated into the forums after an upgrade?

Benefits of the upgrade include higher performance and more stability, as well as tons of new features. But for a while, the boards may be bare and lack some of the current custom functionality that you guys are used to. Also, there will be probably 8-12 hours worth of downtime.

What do you all think? Would you all like to see an upgrade?

[Coomer]

Sounds good.

Here's my basic plan of attack:

8pm PST - Take the site offline. This has to be done in order to ensure the database isn't being changed while I update.

I'll make backups to my hard drive as well as Amazon S3 of the entire forums directory and database. There's a good chance that the changes will be too great to do all at once and I may revert everything back if I can't get it working by tomorrow morning.

Hopefully by 9pm I'll have backups done and can start the upgrades.

Hopefully by 10pm I can have the forums upgraded and have the site online shortly afterwards, but I doubt the upgrade process will go smoothly. I expect the upgrade scripts to fail, meaning I'll be updating everything manually, which will take several hours.

But by tomorrow morning, I should have the site back online, hopefully with the forums upgraded, but possibly in the same state that it's currently in now.