[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by jimoots

Like with anything, there are a number of different providers of forum software and all do things a little differently.

This forum is run on a software called Vbulliten. We are on version 3.8.7 - over 10 years old - with vBulliten now well into version 6.

The easiest path forward is an upgrade to version six, however over that time the 'way things work' (i.e. storing and accessing data) within vBulliten software has changed.

That means you don't just click a button and presto, you're on version 6. It's a bit of a process to go from where we are to the current day.

Migrating this software to another platform adds further challenges, as the way data is stored by vbulliten will almost certainly be done differently, and require careful migration. Add to that, the way another platform works will function differently... and given how resistant to change some folk around here are, I imagine that would present headaches for users to!

The other part of migrating to another forum software is that it is unlikely that you could migrate straight from VB3 to the current version of another provider. There are often migration tools that assist in lining up databases, but in my experience they support the newer versions of software. So you'd likely have to go VB3 - > VB6 -> Something else.

All of the above is a bit of a plain english simplification, but just noting that the process takes time and above all a desire to undertake the change.



Yep this is pretty much the cost of the software, not much.

The other additional, and more significant, cost is hosting (i.e. the computing power to run and data storage for the site) but that is independent of what forum version / platform we run.

Vbulliten blurs the lines a bit with their hosted solution which turns forum into a SaaS product with a monthly cost, but then you're not up for supplying your own hosting and you don't have to sweat a lot of the things you do when you're running your own sever and software..

Good info.