I'm currently evaluating what I would like to use for a webserver. Right now, I have a VPS that is doing just fine. I'm hosting a drupal site, a joomla site, and several static sites. with all combined I get about 300-400 hits total/day. Not that much.

However, I'm thinking about adding a couple more database driven websites, and one of them possibly might start getting lots of hits.

I'm thinking I can either:

1) stick with what I have
2) upgrade to a dedicated server
3) use Amazon S3, GoGrid, or something similar.

If I get a dedicated server, I assume I should probably get a backup drive AND RAID for the best protection and speed.

I've looked into Amazon S3. If I do a "small" server, it will cost about $75 for the uptime and transfer, as long as the transfer isn't many GB. Once I start transferring lots of data, the transfer charges get expensive.

Has anyone here decided to use S3 or grid computing? Is this only justified for situations that need multiple CPUS and distributing servers for databases and web servers?

I'm trying to keep my costs down, but am also trying to think ahead to the future as well.

Have you considered upgrading the resources on your existing VPS? If that is not an option you can look at getting a dedicated server based on the location that most of your customers are in.

Is there any particular reason WHY you are upgrading?

From what you've described, it sounds like a "well, no one's coming to my restaurant now, but assuming 200 people come a night, i better expand to make sure i can hold them!" mentality. :)

Upgrading won't really break the bank, but just wondering if there's a reason.


Lawrence

yes, i suggest upgrading your current vps. Moving to a dedicated, at least now just doesn't seem needed

Thanks for the replies. I agree that a dedicated server right now is not needed. I suppose the best thing to do is make sure that the sites can be scalable, such as using separate database / web servers if necessary.

I think that a VPS is hard to beat, especially considering they offer RAID, which I would have to pay lots more money to get in a dedicated server.

At the same time, I'd hate to have to migrate many times.

If a website starts to get "viral", there is not much that can be done, short of using a content delivery network or grid computing, right?

Thanks for the replies. I agree that a dedicated server right now is not needed. I suppose the best thing to do is make sure that the sites can be scalable, such as using separate database / web servers if necessary.

I think that a VPS is hard to beat, especially considering they offer RAID, which I would have to pay lots more money to get in a dedicated server.

At the same time, I'd hate to have to migrate many times.

If a website starts to get "viral", there is not much that can be done, short of using a content delivery network or grid computing, right?

Nice nick by the way.

I did the math some time ago and came to the conclusion that Amazon EC3 is not the way to go if you're wanting to save money. EC3 is for businesses that need to scale and don't care about throwing a lot of money at the problem.

Migrating your VPS doesn't have to be painful. Virtualization tools have already taken the pain out of the process. Migrating your VPS from serverA to serverB has now become a matter of a few clicks (google VPS live migration). But you have to have control over the hardware node to do that (or get your provider to cooperate).

For now, just keep upgrading resources as you need them until you have to grow elsewhere. Do you have SAR tools installed to monitor resource usage over time (see http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=729846)? If a single website grows faster than anything else you'll need to pinpoint the bottleneck and expand from there (ex: if the DB is the bottleneck, load balanced replication can help). It'll most likely need to be decoupled from the VPS and run it on bare hardware nodes (virtualization introduces overhead in most cases).

Regards

Well said UNIXy.
The best method is to be proactive with your resource needs via active monitoring of your server. Be sure to have backups going and just continue to upgrade your components until you can cost justify your own dedicated server.

If a website starts to get "viral", there is not much that can be done, short of using a content delivery network or grid computing, right?

If for some reason you are that 0.00001% that goes "viral", worry about it then. :)

If it is indeed that popular, you should be able to keep up.

But the stories of a company crash and burning due to over-expansion is much more prevalent than a company that had "so much business but couldn't keep up.. so had to close the door." In fact, i can't think of any.

Even friendster, when i used it like 5 years back, i felt the servers were crap, but i kept coming back anyways. Frankly, i didn't after a while, not because of the server-load, but because it was more boring than the other networks..

Lawrence

I've looked into Amazon S3. If I do a "small" server, it will cost about $75 for the uptime and transfer, as long as the transfer isn't many GB. Once I start transferring lots of data, the transfer charges get expensive.

I think you are mixing up Amazon terms a little bit. First if you need a virtual server you are referring to EC2, not S3. They also have an option to use Reserved Instances where you have to pay for at least one year in advance. A small server costs $325/year or about $27/month. if you buy it for 3 years, you should pay $500 and the monthly prices goes down to ~ $14.

Andy
CloudBerry S3 Explorer freeware developer.

i think it depends on what your budget is too. Usually the dedicated server starts at around 170$ per month. Having said that, I think the VPS works just fine for your requirement.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I will install some tools such as sar to monitor the usage/bandwidth and pay attention to that.

Yes, I confused the Amazon terminology, sorry. The reserved instances as I understand them are the $325 for one year for a small instance, plus $0.03/hr instead of $0.10.

If you know that you will be using the server 24x7, this does make sense to do. The calculations I did quickly show a difference of about $25 -- $75/month at regular pricing and about $49/month at the reserved instance pricing. Of course, this assumes very little data transfer.

And UNIXy, thanks for the comments about the nick. I chose this as one of my usernames about 8-9 years ago, when I was doing shared memory program with IPCs on UNIX systems.

I don't see a question above asking you what you currently pay for and what you are getting? Because there are some managed solutions out there for a single-core dedicated that will give you a lot more space, a lot more bandwidth. Furthermore, what if's come into play with your current provider if they load up their vps'. If they add on a heavy user that doesn't know what they are doing, next thing you know your vps service goes to crap. I will never go back to vps after having dedicated, whether I need it or not, it's MINE.