i was wondering what some thoughts were to trying to get the most out of 1 server or using multiple smaller servers. do you think its better to get one massive server or what? say if i were to have 5000 customers what would you recommend. i'm thinking its maybe a nightmare with multiple servers because then you need extra control panels, ssl certificates, nameservers, etc. just dont want to run into a nightmare down the road. any response would be greatly appreciated. as you can tell i'm new. thank you very much, sal

Sal, it depends on what type of system you are talking about. If you are using all separate servers that are not really integrated then yes, it would be hard to administrate everything.

If you had a cluster system that was running H Sphere it would be much easier. Everything would be controlled from one admin control panel and adding new servers is super easy. Plus you would have separate, true DNS servers so you would have some measure of redundency there.

Thank you for your response Matt.

I have one raq3, one raq4, and an IBM with Cpanel.
All Linux/Unix
the raq3 is now, ns and ns2
the raq4 is now ns3 and ns32
and the ibm is ns5 and ns6

Can I setup this "cluster system" with my setup?

Thanks again, sal

I don't believe that you can run H Sphere from a raq server, we have never attempted it.

I would suggest either a p3, p4 or amd processor with 512 MB of ram for each cluster.

Well you also have to consider something other than administration and hard drive space,, something that has just blew my plans out of the water...

Bandwidth...
Let say you build a massive server with 6 120GB WD drives...
You will most definately be able to get many many customers on this bad boy and make a huge amount of profit right?

Wrong, because it levels out at some point because of the bandwidth..

In otherwords its very possible to fill up the drives, but if the drives are filled up.. then realistically the bandwidth generated will be too much for the server...

With that in mind also almost no customer uses all the storage you sell them. Its a balancing game, one that i havent figured out yet either.. so to your question,,,,

If you find a great solution let me know, but from what ive found is that once you get too great of a server it simply cant handle the bandwidth, so there is a limit to what you should and shouldnt build..

Also the fact that the server will be worth less then half you pay for it in six months.

If you are using raq's and need a multiple server solution they have an appliance that allows you to control multiple raqs.. so you could still use many small servers if you wanted.

Most likely you will get your money out of the small servers first so if your starting out i would go with small servers.. if not then i would go with a mediocre setup, state of the art never seems to be worth it in the end.

just my 2cents,