Many of us create websites hoping that they get a lot of hits.
How can you ensure that if your web site gets a lot of hits, that it doesn't get knocked over, that it can scale and take many hits? I am not talking about a DoS attack. I am talking about a website that gets very popular and gets a lot of hits.
Will soon be launching a new web-service with high expectations for immediate growth and usage. Assuming I'm not totally delusional, and traffic surges reasonably rapidly, I guess we will need a solid, scalable service.
Cost is definitely a concern. I expect a dedicated server will be required - although should it flop, we'd rather not be going through the hassle of changing/paying more than we should.
Essentially my questions are:
Can anyone recommend a responsive, customer-centric, reliable host that would allow and arrange an instant upgrade to a dedicated server from a VPS, say..?
Assume an 'average' spec dedicated server with a good host - approximately how much traffic could this handle?
Our website is quite low on resources - very few images, well optimized, essentially running PHP5 & MySQL DB's.
I realise that's kinda like asking the length of a piece of string, but I'm trying my best. Any light you can shed would be much appreciated.
So in summary, looking for a reliable, responsive and competitively priced host which would react well to a sudden surge in traffic and be helpful in assisting with possible upgrade solutions..
I've been running a website now for about 8 years. It's gone through one name change. We've been with a company called flexihostings for a long time on a dedicated server but I think the sites design wasn't scalable and because of that the site has been running from one server and struggling as the traffic increased. Recently the traffic got to a point where the costs of serving the site from one location lead to it's demise. The site was slow, unresponsive and the answer from flexihostings was more about putting in more RAM, rather then us thinking about new technology. Some of the guys decided to pull the plug because of this before fixing the site but I'm going to start something back up from scratch but build it with scalability in mind to actually reduce the costs and pay for what I use.
Site Needs - Probably 2-3 Terrabytes of Bandwidth (to be scalable) - Site Ability to handle Flash Video Encoder etc for upload of user videos. (Scalability later as traffic grows) - Site ability to handle lots of database activity. Approx 30-40 queries a second as the site is very dynamic. (Or is there a better way to do this) - Ability to handle API's later on other sites from the information on the new site.
Ideas on Rebuilding a Site like this. - Amazons S3 Cloudfront Service to handle media such as images and video to reduce bandwidth. Instead of my server hosting these files should I use this service to put all my images and video up onto so that the bandwidth is paid for externally. This would mean I don't need a crazy amount of bandwidth on the server package I select, is this correct? I'm also reducing the bandwidth as they serve these images like a CDN. - A spin off is to use a content delivery network. Again what's peoples thoughts on this if traffic starts low and increases over time. Is this something that is affordable up front and scalable as the traffic increases.
Love to hear people's ideas on this. The traffic I'm thinking of is starting around the 50,000-100,000 uniques a month with 500,000 page views. This is what the old site was getting and I won't have any issues getting it back there quickly, to be honest that isn't that great but we were climbing very fast when it crashed averaging 100 new members a day. This then has heaps of possibilities, 2 to 3 million uniques and the equivalent meaning if the page view ratio was the same 30,000,000 page views. (Hmm does that seem unrealistic) Either way I want to be on something that is scalable and need a host that understands this.
Whats your advice, go dedicated to put everything on anyway, or have multiple servers to handle different things. Or is shared hosting fine for this is I share the content around the web?
if anyone would be able to offer suggestions for setting up a scalable server setup. Here's the situation.
I currently have one web server in a LAMP environment. This server houses both the application and the database.
I would like to setup something that provides more redundancy, and offers the ability to scale as needbe.
It seems there are quite a few options, here's what I am currently aware of.
1) Multiple servers, each house a copy of the database and the applications/files
2) Separate application server and database servers. For sake of redundancy, there would be two load balanced application servers and two clustered database servers.
Currently, with my setup of 1 server, the load is not bad, so it's really for redundancy than anything else, the bonus however would be a setup that is relatively easy to scale as the load became more testing.
We have a small web+email hosting and data center business in Africa. We've been providing hosting services to our clients using Plesk on Dell-based servers (connected over a Fiberchannel interface to a SAN). Our data center is connected via an STM-4 and multiple STM-1s to 2 different upstream providers.
The problem we're having is (as a result of our own lack of knowledge) that our solution is just not scalable in the current configuration. We essentially buy a Dell server, install Plesk and keep provisioning customer domains (web and mail hosting) on it till capacity runs out (we max out on average at 400 domains per server) and then buy the next Dell machine and repeat.
What we're looking for is advice on building a more scalable and automated solution. Essentially we're looking for a software and hardware solution (blade solution with web and mail software that is able to harness the power / redundancy of multiple blade servers) that enables us to provision thousands of customers at one go (and simply add more blades servers as needed).
I'm completely torn on going the absolute budget route vs spending more for something that'll allow easy upgradeability in the future. I basically need lots of space but file sending-- media like mp3s, video, etc.
it'll be raid 5 and I'll need at least 2-3TB initially but the ability to expand would be nice.
option 1: nice chassis with plenty of hotswap bays with sas expanders expensive sas raid card
option 2: cheap chassis to serve "immediate" needs and go with more later. not sure what I'd use as a card? maybe even onboard?
regarding reliability: I once saw a database of failure rates of different models. raptor was the most reliable of the "desktop" drives. anyone have the link? I'm wondering of the seagate ES drives are worth the extra money vs the non-ES drives. they're supposedely more reliable and the "server versions" of sata drives.
I'd like to ask for some help in choosing a webhost. I want to host a website that will be a sales database. It will use a MySQL database and PHP. I will not need large amounts of disc space (I can't estimate exactly but probably less than 10GB) and relatively low amounts of bandwidth. What's important is a high uptime and security and quality bandwidth. I am very sceptical with all the webhosts offering unlimited services since I know they are overselling. Do you know of any quality webhosts suitable with the above characteristics?
I am in charge of making a website for a charter school. Where I stand right now is I am going to use Joomla, and I assume Fantastico. Now where I am still stuck is with a webhost. Every time I locate one that sounds good (editor's picks, and such), I read the feedback comments and find tons of complaints. Can someone recommend one please. Under $10; user friendly; accepts Paypal would be very helpful. I went to get Bluehost, as an example, from some reviews I read, and then I read the feedback section. I don't think I understand the terms enough to make a choice on my own,
I friend of mine wanted to know if it's possible to use a webhost (for example hostmonster.com and bluehost.com.) as a backup storage. Is it possible to transfer the files to the webhost with ftp at "Admin Backup/Transfer" with admin level?
I wanted to do a little poll to see what WHT users like better. Would you prefer MobileME or a WebHost? Could you also if you have the time provide a reasoning.
I am a free web hosting service on one of my VPS' and I owuld like to transfer it to another one. How can I do it without creating issues as I would like to move all the accounts with it at the same time.
Current VPS and webhost nameservers
ns1.domain1.com ns2.domain2.com
New VPS nameservers
ns1.domain2.com ns2.domain2.com
Now how can I move all the accounts but dont change the nameservers? I mean is it possible to have two different domain name servers pointing to each other?
Not sure if it makes sense but hopefully some expert guy will get to the bottom of it
I have an application written in ASP.NET 2.0 with MySQL as back-end that I would like to host. I am looking for a host who support ASP.NET with MySQL. Can anyone help me find a good host?
I'm getting ready to upgrade my site to Joomla and am learning all these things about security issues. For example, the register globals on my webserver is turned on and I can't turn it off unless I go to a dedicated server and pay 3X per month of what I'm paying now. And there's other things too about this particular webhost.
Just wondering if anyone can give any input from experience on who is a good webhost for a Joomla site with regards to security, etc.
When I was trying to figure out who to register with I looked at the following things. I believe all of these are very important to making your website as successful as possible. Support and uptime are the most important to me without these your site will be down alot and take longer to bring back when a problem occurs. The amount of space and plan though is really on a case to case basis.
* Price * Performance * Reliability * Customer Support * Control Panel * User Feedback * Website Design
Does anyone know of a good web host that allows adult content? No porn or anything hardcore, basically it's just half-nude/topless/erotic posing pictures.
I will definitely need a web host that allows a lot of bandwidth, I'm actually doing this for someone who just got in the cover of Penthouse. So.. I'm sure there will be a lot of traffic.
3. Ideally allows for storage of files that are not related to the website.
4. Ideally allows for anonymous FTP access.
Only 1 and 2 are critical. The site will have many MP3s, Videos, PDF and text documents available for streaming or downloading. All the material will either be my own or the copywrited material of my organization. I have their express written permission to host and distribute these media files under a creative commons license. It will be 5GB or less of files, and they will be downloaded rarely and not very many people simultaneously downloading at once.
Most webhosts I have looked at (Monsterhost, 1and1, Bluehost, mmhosting.com, etc) All offer unlimited/tons of space and have some provision in their terms of service agreement like this: "Webhost company does not allow file sharing / unlimited media sharing." or "HostMonster.Com offers its Services to host web sites, not to store data. Using an account as an online storage space for archiving electronic files is prohibited and will result in termination of hosting services without prior notice."
So where can I find a host that allows file hosting, video hosting, etc? I don't need a lot of bandwidth/storage space, but I do want to host my media.
I'm just wanting some feedback in response to what I feel is gross neglegence of a Webhost I used. I have a website thru this company, WebsitePros. They seemed great for someone like myself, a retail business owner/operator w/ no eployees. I pay 1 company to host, market, and provide software for me to build & manage my site & store. My site had an ecommerce store which was mistakenly deleted by someone at their company. They lost all my pics, product descriptions, customer info, etc, from 2 years of business. They have no backups at all for the store (i had to login to my account to manage store using thier software-- no ability to backup the info on my computer). I was told by their supervisor that traditional webhosts like WebsitePros don't backup store files, just the site itself, and that they would only be willing to help rebuild but offer no monetary compensation (oh yeah, and 3months at 1/2 price...sweet). This isn't a case of failure to pay a bill or anything along those lines---they admit total liability. My questions are:
1) Is it not the webhost's responsibility to backup these "store" files?
2) Do I seem unreasonable in asking for damages since they lost all this info, including 100's of customer profiles & outstanding orders?
I'm base in Singapore. Most of my customers from US and UK.
I need a reliable trustworthy webhost that can make my site payment methods by Enets which i dont really understand their policy and paypal (which i know that almost all virtual webhost do support) .
I had been doing a nice host hunting and here are too many webhost offers that are "too good to be true".
I actually really have'nt found what I've been looking for. What I need is a shared webhost in Europe. What I need is:
- 5 GB disk storage - Some traffic (not really that much) - Up to 10-15 add-on domains (accessing different folders) - Up to 30 MySQL databases - Subdomains (accessing different folders) - 10 FTP-users who can access folders across the usernames - PHP - ImageMagick - PHP memory limit not lower than 32 MB (to support TYPO3) - SFTP support - SSH/Shell if possible
I'm currently with DreamHost and Servage.net. DreamHost is actually OK (even though they seem to be overselling) - but I would like to move my sites closer to home (Denmark). Servage.NET I can't recommend, as their MySQL perfomance (or whatever) is horrible on the first request to my websites.
So basically what I wan't is specs more or less like DreamHost - but without the very high amount of disk-space and transfer.
I've been looking at some UK-based hosts - but most of the fails on either the domains or MySQL databases. However - I have'nt been able to figure out how many domains you can host on floppynet.co.uk?
I need a webhost (Linux preferably) with some fairly specific FTP account requirements.
I am going to need to be able to create an FTP account that multiple users can log on at once and they can upload files but NOT overwrite files of the same name. Can this be done? Anyone know of a host with these options?
This is for a program I'm working on where users make images and they upload them to the web. I don't want to use HTTP uploading because I don't know how to script it when FTP is easier for me. I wouldn't want people to learn the filenames of images and upload images with the exact same name to delete people's files.
I have recently been looking over Webhost Websites seeking errors, I will admit I have come across a couple at HawkHost (not trying to make a fool of them), Just pointing errors out.
@ Their SLA - [url] - You will see that they have:
Quote:
Your must include the service type, primary domain, contact information, and a full description of the service interruption including logs if applicable.
Where 'Your' should be 'You'
Also at their [url]- Page the link to SLA lead to /policy/sla instead of /legal/sla.
I have submitted these errors, But this is besides the point of the thread, I am work curious to 'Does it Deter You' from purchasing from a Webhost with errors?
I mean like no ID checks and they provide instant setup if I am paying by paypal. I know credit card they find it risky but I am paying with paypal they should not ask for any ID verification and Hostgator claims they provide instant setup but its very rare they flag your order even if you pay by paypal.
I've been web designing for quite awhile now and been through a variety of webhosts, but never, ever, have I seen such a lack of caring or complete ineptitude that EasyCGI showed.
I was with them for quiet a few months, preparing the launch of my website. Mid October, I noticed how slow the website was... but since EasyCGI was announcing a server change, I stayed by them and hoped for the best. I launched my website November 1st.
Basically, since it's launch.. every few days, my website would go down.. I'd file a support ticket and magically it'd be fixed. This went on for the first few tries, until I figured out that the culprit was the MySQL database behind my website (using Joomla).
What was happening was every few days my database was getting overwritten with someone else's data... and in turn, I could go and browse their entire database (yes with credit card tables, usernames, ability to change passwords, the whole nine). I pointed this out to EasyCGI, where they admitted this was what was going on... and did not seem to care too much that someone else's database was compromised.
This overwriting of my database went on so long... that even my backups (backed up 3 days) were backed up with the wrong database... leaving any regular backups I downloaded from them, useless. Finally, my only hope? That they could retrieve a decent back up, an older backup, from the older server before they began to overwrite mine.
Their answer... they'd closed that server down and it was not possible. They lost my entire website database, the core of the website.. meaning I had no functioning website, at all, on their server.
Their responses seem as though I'm not the only one, nor do they care that I'm the only one as well.
Posting this (along with attachments as proof below) so people can avoid them.