Thread: Questions about migrating a site with 30,000 users to Dolphin

I own a site that has over 30,000 users that is running smoothly on e107. Mostly, the site leverages the forums plugin, the rest of the plugins are not used much. I'm considering migrating the site to something like Dolphin or Elgg so that it becomes more of a social network than just forums. I like what I see in Dolphin more than Elgg, so I'm leaning towards Boonex but I have questions that maybe someone here can answer:

1) How is security with Boonex Dolphin and how fast do they respond to discovered vulnerabilities?

2) Can this software handle large volumes of users?

3) Migration won't happen until the early next year, so should I wait for version 7?

4) How is their forum software Orca (either the current version or ver 7)?

5) Should I be concerned about the rumor about this company being run incognito from a scammer (I don't know if there's any truth to this)?

Thanks in advance...

1) How is security with Boonex Dolphin and how fast do they respond to discovered vulnerabilities?

Depends, these are usually found and fixed in the community first.

2) Can this software handle large volumes of users?

With 6.1.6 or before, 32,000 users is the maximum, not because of the database, but because of the file system (for example, ext3 has a maximum of 32k subfolders in a folder, and Dolphin 6.1.6 and before stores profile images in subfolders). We have a modification to get around this restriction - and with it, support sites with 250K + users

3) Migration won't happen until the early next year, so should I wait for version 7?

Perhaps.

4) How is their forum software Orca (either the current version or ver 7)?

We don't like in 6.1.6 and before, and usually remove it and replace it with something else. In 7, don't have an opinion yet on ORCA.

5) Should I be concerned about the rumor about this company being run incognito from a scammer (I don't know if there's any truth to this)?

I think this is a bunch of BS. We have not seen anything in 7 years to indicate that.

Smoge

Thanks for you reply Smoge. I have a couple more questions maybe you can help me with:

1) Does version 7 support more than 32,000 users out-of-the-box?

2) If I were to install a version so I can start a migration strategy, would you recommend ver 6 or ver 7? My final migration won't be until Q1 next year.

3) If I went with ver 6 above, will it be difficult to upgrade to ver 7 and keep all the current users/settings?

Thanks again...

Originally Posted by DevilBoy

1) Does version 7 support more than 32,000 users out-of-the-box?

Don't know - I have not wasted my time looking at 7 until it is at least in RC1. Looking at / working on Betas is a waste of time, in my humble opinion.

2) If I were to install a version so I can start a migration strategy, would you recommend ver 6 or ver 7? My final migration won't be until Q1 next year.

Don't know yet - this remains to be seen once 7 is in RC and, perhaps Final.

3) If I went with ver 6 above, will it be difficult to upgrade to ver 7 and keep all the current users/settings?

They say they have a migration tool built in 7, to go from 6 to 7, but I don't know how effective it is. And remember, any modifications you add to 6 would need to be re-added to 7.

Smoge