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feldon34 · 03-12-2003, 08:00 PM

Normal webhosting, also called "virtual" or "shared" runs about $8~25 a month. This type of hosting means that your website is a folder on a server computer. You are sharing the CPU and memory with every other website running from that server.

If the server gets overloaded then it is the hosting company's responsibility to spread out the accounts on it to other servers to deal with the problem, or ask for more money.

Also, 1 person can't install their own versions of the software. Everyone uses the same web server, the same scripting, etc. If someone wants to run a different/new version of any of this software, the company must upgrade the whole server since it affects everyone.

Server Load is a number that tells you how many programs are trying to run that cannot find any free CPU time to do their business. This means that the server's CPU is at 100% capacity and there are still more unfulfilled requests coming in. Visitors to your website might see nothing for 10, 20, 30 or more seconds. Server Load should very rarely be higher than 2~3, with an acceptable peak of 5 maybe a few times a month.

Well, we've been seeing typical Server Loads of 3~5, peaking each day at 5~18 and occasionally reaching 17~19 when things were really swamped.

So, what to do? Well, we could try another of these shared hosting deals. But, it turns out, we were beyond the recommended hardware requirements of most of those. When you are getting more than 1,200 unique visits and serving up 1 GB of traffic a day, shared hosting is a poor choice.

For a long time, there was a massive gap between the $25 plans and the next highest level, called dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is literally having 1 whole PC in a closet at the hosting company reserved for your website/domain and nobody else's. SereneScreen/Prolific has at least 3 PCs.

Dedicated hosting is also $120/month for the entry-level systems!

So I investigated many options and settled upon something called Virtual Private Server.

It takes a Dedicated Server and splits it up into 10-20 walled-off 'virtual servers'. Instead of a free-for-all like shared hosting, each customer on VPS is given an exact percentage of the CPU(s), an exact amount of RAM, and an exact amount of bandwidth they can use. Nobody can crowd other people out, and you know exactly when you need to upgrade to a more expensive service.

So far, I'm impressed.

Bandwidth was one of a hundred reasons I was happy to get away from Web66.

03-12-2003, 08:00 PM	#20
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Normal webhosting, also called "virtual" or "shared" runs about $8~25 a month. This type of hosting means that your website is a folder on a server computer. You are sharing the CPU and memory with every other website running from that server. If the server gets overloaded then it is the hosting company's responsibility to spread out the accounts on it to other servers to deal with the problem, or ask for more money. Also, 1 person can't install their own versions of the software. Everyone uses the same web server, the same scripting, etc. If someone wants to run a different/new version of any of this software, the company must upgrade the whole server since it affects everyone. *Server Load* is a number that tells you how many programs are trying to run that cannot find any free CPU time to do their business. This means that the server's CPU is at 100% capacity and there are still more unfulfilled requests coming in. Visitors to your website might see nothing for 10, 20, 30 or more seconds. *Server Load* should very rarely be higher than 2~3, with an acceptable peak of 5 maybe a few times a month. Well, we've been seeing typical Server Loads of 3~5, peaking each day at 5~18 and occasionally reaching 17~19 when things were really swamped. So, what to do? Well, we could try another of these shared hosting deals. But, it turns out, we were beyond the recommended hardware requirements of most of those. When you are getting more than 1,200 unique visits and serving up 1 GB of traffic a day, shared hosting is a poor choice. For a long time, there was a massive gap between the $25 plans and the next highest level, called dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is literally having 1 whole PC in a closet at the hosting company reserved for your website/domain and nobody else's. SereneScreen/Prolific has at least 3 PCs. Dedicated hosting is also $120/month for the entry-level systems! So I investigated many options and settled upon something called Virtual Private Server. It takes a Dedicated Server and splits it up into 10-20 walled-off 'virtual servers'. Instead of a free-for-all like shared hosting, each customer on VPS is given an exact percentage of the CPU(s), an exact amount of RAM, and an exact amount of bandwidth they can use. Nobody can crowd other people out, and you know exactly when you need to upgrade to a more expensive service. So far, I'm impressed. Bandwidth was one of a hundred reasons I was happy to get away from Web66. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman Last edited by feldon34; 03-12-2003 at 09:52 PM.