Server needs?
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- jox
Does anybody have any experience as to what hardware is required for a certain amount of visitors? Is there a formula or something that gives you ballpark ideas?
Suppose I have a website that is 2 mb in total, and I have 10.000 visitors a day. What would be enough? And what happens if say, one day there are 20.000 visitors?
I have zero experience with this, but somehow I find myself being in charge of it.
Appreciate any input.
- joyride0
Are you looking to set up a server (lease or buy and colocate) or are you looking for hosting?
- jox0
I don't know the proper term since there are so many, but we're buying a server to put in a rack at a hosting firm.
- undo_undo0
the best ppl to talk to are ISPs you trust. in general tho you will need to make some assumptions. what percentage of the site do people actually use, how much this weighs in terms of filesize. this can be multiplied by hits over the period giving you the estimated data transfer etc.
your programmers should also be able to estimate the load on the server by how intense their code is. how many queries happen on a db, the number of file uploads possible, how much data is written per user x num of users will tell you how big the db should be etc
if the hosting company are supportting yr server you have a managed solution. most of the time these are adequate for very large sites.
- joyride0
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/sh…
that site has tons of info... maybe to much for you to digest.
I don't usually suggest that people co-locate in a data center (which is what you're doing) unless they have experience monitoring/troubleshooting hosting servers. You can eventually grow to that point, but at first, I always suggest leasing a managed server with your software requirements. And pick a host that you can expand with as you grow. i.e. the server is hit really hard they can move you to a faster/better server with little/no downtime. Most of the time all you need to pay is maybe a setup fee and the difference in the plan. But mainly pick a host that has great support and offers the flexibility to grow. Start talking to them first and do a search on webhostingtalk for them. see what's being said about em' does that help?
- jpea0
i'd 2nd joyride on leasing a managed server if you haven't colo'd a server yourself before. having your own machine in there is a huge pain if something goes wrong on the hardware end. with a managed box you can depend on someone else (who probably is located in the DC) to replace stuff that goes down.
- jox0
Thanks guys.
I realise this sort of stuff is more critical than I thought, which is why I'm passing it on to the dev's and ISP. I just learned that it requires somebody to do patching frequently and that it's a 24/7 job to keep yourself updated ...and is pretty intense to learn.
Even though that particular thread linked was a little too basic, there were other tons of great info on that site. Thank you!
- ********0
where I work we have a server just to host our site and local network.
the hardware is not so relevant as the software (licenses, firewall, etc are expensive) and the specs of the contract with the ISP - you need a dedicated broadband line (very expensive) to handle major amounts of traffic within your IP. Also, you need someone to keep an eye on it at least 15-20 hours/week (maintenance etc) and ready to be there when trouble happens. it's an headache and sometimes everything goes down (like a motherboard melting from a major thunderstorm and leaving you and the company stalled for a week, like it happened last month to us.)
i think it comes cheaper (just for saving trouble) to buy an entreprise solution in a hosting company and let them have all the headaches. They are obliged to have your stuff running in the next minute, and if you're doing it it can take 1 or 2 days.
i'm a bit biased since i don't care for back-end stuff - it's a nice experience, though, and you learn lots of stuff if you're interested. but since i'm not interested in that experience, i think having to manage servers yourself just puts you off other stuff and productivity.
- Rickbass0
I run a few boxes and there are moments when it's enormous hassle. If you consider yourself a front end person, you might want to think carefully about whether you want to get into all that.
Also, when you say your site is 2mb and you have 10,000 users a day... you might want to think about if those users are all coming to you at the same time (e.g. afternoon from one country) and make sure that you have enough throughput to handle that. Also, be sure that you've got enough monthly bandwidth to cover a spike - overage fees can sometimes be a bit of a shock.
My guess for what you're asking is that you don't need anything particularly fancy if you're just looking to serve a static page. Maybe try The Planet or something for a basic box that'll do what you want. Typically, it's about 1500GB data transfer and a decent box for about $180 with them.
- ribit0
we've use ev1servers.net for 5 years...they do unmanaged (and since they merged with the Planet they also do managed) servers, with like 1400GB transfer /mth for around $120... on the unmanaged servers they just guarantee its running and you can get to it on SSH port22, the rest is up to you...but good value, and if it breaks they replace it...