Hello,

I have read through the many postings on this board and can say I am very confused. Just as I am about to select a dedicated provider, I find someting bad about it.

Anyhow, I am looking for recommendations (perhaps hardware plus a provider) for a large vbulletin forum site that can support at its peak 150 simulatenous connections.

Any recommendations and comments will be gladly accepted :)

Thanks.

-R

Recommendations are one thing, but how much can you spend per month?

Are you looking for managed or unmanaged? Your budget would also be helpful.

150 users @ a time? Do you have any other PHP Apps?

Anyhow, you might as well go for Dual Xeon with 1GB of RAM... h/d is not a big deal... they are all big enough... my board get 170 users plus i have a gallery and other custom PHP apps... i am looking to upgrade... cuz i currently have a 1.6ghz w/ 500mb ram... but my CPU avgs are going thru the roof...

Once you know your H/W then pick a host...

no matter what ... you will find something bad about a host... wether its from a recent bad experience or something from a year ago... everyone has bumps in the road that can last for awhile... but as the dedicated hosting market matures... i have found that the service is getting better...

anyhow... depending on your budget.... Nocster is good for managed servers and affordability... network is pretty stable... support is solid most of the time...

there are so many... but look @ who's been around for awhile... cuz they probably went through some rought times and bad PR... and hopefully learned from it...

Rackshack appears good... never tried them though... but it's will alwayz be a crap shoot...

You may consider Servermatrix :) Or VPS by dedicatednow.

I would like to pay less than $250

I am also looking for Ensim Pro setup. I preffer a manage solution but am aware of the higher costs.


Any ideas which providers will do?

-R

We have a dual xeon at rackshack that hosts a fan site. It's stats:

In total there are 13 users online :: 7 Registered, 4 Hidden and 2 Guests [ Administrator ] [ Moderator ]
Most users ever online was 222 on Sun Oct 26, 2003 8:47 am
Registered Users: *

Being UK time its only morning there. Loads hover around the 1 mark peak time.

dual xeon for 13 users? hm. should be more like 1,300...

irubin,
Seems like you're at that point where you need a dedicated server or at least a semi-dedicated. If your website has a demand of at least 150 simultaneous connections then you really might want to consider purchasing that dedicated server since with that many connections, shared hosts will definitely not be ideal.

Probably one of the biggest concerns when dealing with dedicated servers is management. First, there are generally two types of dedicated servers: managed and unmanaged.

With unmanaged servers, you'll be responsible for everything including monitoring your server. Dedicated providers such as ev1servers.net provide such solutions.

Managed dedicated hosting on the other hand is where your provider also acts as a maintaince team to keep your server in shape. There are multiple levels of managed solutions ranging from those who just act as a pair of extra hands and eyes for monitoring your server and doing updates, to those who will act as system admins and optimize your servers and make sure everything software and hardware wise is running smoothly. A good example of a managed dedicated server provider is servermatrix.com

For obvious reasons, managed dedicated servers will be more costly. In my honest opinion, I think you should go with a servermatrix server. If your budget is $250, then I would suggest going with the Super Xeon w/ CPanel. Basic silver management is provided free. You might also think about hiring your own system admin with the remaining $. -- Or if your budget is tight, go with one of the superservers. Those P4s will handle enough juice for 150 users on at once without much of a problem. Add in extra ram if you need to.

If you have any problems, feel free to contact me. Best of luck! :)

MN-Robert: Rackshack (EV1) is out of servers at this point.

Argious:

thanks for the information. I checked out their plans and have a couple of questions:

- what is a vlan?
- they don't mention the CPanel version . What is considered better ensim or cpanel?


Thanks again.


Roy

Originally posted by piramida
dual xeon for 13 users? hm. should be more like 1,300...

Some people do not bother reading :rolleyes:

Originally posted by irubin

Argious:

thanks for the information. I checked out their plans and have a couple of questions:

- what is a vlan?
- they don't mention the CPanel version . What is considered better ensim or cpanel?


Thanks again.


Roy
- vlan stands for virtual lan. Virtual LANs (VLANs) can be viewed as a group of devices on different physical LAN segments which can communicate with each other as if they were all on the same physical LAN segment.

- personally, I think CPanel is better in all respects -- admin wise and client wise. http://cpanel.net for a demo of CPanel if you havn't seen it before. For servermatrix, you have to select cpanel as a control panel and it's only +$20/mo extra. What version of CPanel you said... well, they don't list the version simply because you will have full WHM control and you'll be able to update/upgrade your cpanel version. Good stuff, huh? :)

Some people do not bother reading

no i actually do bother to read. 13 users is taken directly from your post. you had something in mind posting those stats didn't you? or you have a habit of posting random stats which are absolutely not related to what you are about to say? then I am sorry for misunderstanding :)

Originally posted by piramida
no i actually do bother to read. 13 users is taken directly from your post. you had something in mind posting those stats didn't you? or you have a habit of posting random stats which are absolutely not related to what you are about to say? then I am sorry for misunderstanding :)

Maybe I should spell it out?


We have a dual xeon at rackshack that hosts a fan site


We host a customer that runs a large unofficial bulletin board based on a UK celebrity


It's stats:
In total there are 13 users online :: 7 Registered, 4 Hidden and 2 Guests [ Administrator ] [ Moderator ]
Most users ever online was 222 on Sun Oct 26, 2003 8:47 am
Registered Users: *



The stats above are pulled off at that time. Notice the "Most Users Online Ever 222" :confused:


Being UK time its only morning there. Loads hover around the 1 mark peak time


The site is based on a UK celebrity hence the inclusion in my post "Being UK Time". I also mentioned during peak usage 150+ users loads hover around 1.

Kapish? :stickout:

nicht fershtein :D