dormando has gotten an installation of LiveJournal to work with InnoDB, but needs stability testing done before he installs it on the main site.What does this mean to you?
Well, InnoDB is a more efficient table system for MySQL, the database software we use to run LiveJournal. InnoDB will allow our databases to more rapidly handle the requests for information that allow you to view journals and to see what your friends have posted. InnoDB can perform over 50% faster in many circumstances than the table system we are currently using, which is a huge performance boost.
Right now, LiveJournal usually experiences problems when the database servers are overloaded. Well, imagine that all these requests were processed 50% faster... That would mean that our existing servers could handle considerably more requests. That means faster, more stable performance for everyone!
The catch, of course, is that it is a big change. We want to make sure that everything works reliably first before we try using it on the main site. As a result, we have a test server running LiveJournal, but we need people to try it out!
How can you do this? Well, basically, by setting up an account on the test server and doing what you ordinarily do on LiveJournal... just more of it in different, unpredictable combinations. Read the request for testers for more information. If you have any spare time and you like the thought of LiveJournal being faster and more stable, well, now you have something you can do about it!