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Thread: Is VPS enough?

  1. #1

    Is VPS enough?

    Hi,

    I just want to get to know what is the best solution for my website. Currently I have vBulletin (PHP) forum running on my website where DB size is around 1GB (1 million + posts) and 1200 active users. During the peak time my forum has 500 online users but in the average 150-200 users are online all the day.

    Currently I'm in a VPS server with this spec:

    Disk: 75 GB
    RAM: 2 GB
    OS: CentOS
    Traffic: 450 GB

    The problem is when I have over 300 users online the server basically stops responding and I need to restart the server. When I check the logs I see there are several resource alerts regarding shared_cpu where the system enters the red zones. What I can see is MySql consumes a lot of processing power which blocks the server after this number of users.

    Now, should I look for an alternative VPS solution or should I consider a dedicated server? Although I have massive users engaging I don't need a large disk ( may be 2 small disks where mysql sits on a different disk) , not so much traffic. What are your suggestions for me?

  2. #2
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    Its difficult to say if you should take the leap. Are you using any plugins? Have you tried any optimizations (e.g. memcache, overide maxclient with swtune.conf, tunining sql queries, etc)? Check I/O with "iostat" and "sar -a" and post results
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  3. #3
    I don't use any plugins and do not have any optimizations other than this:

    <IfModule prefork.c>
    StartServers 16
    MinSpareServers 10
    MaxSpareServers 40
    ServerLimit 512
    MaxClients 512
    MaxRequestsPerChild 8000

    Should I check the I/O now or when it is heavily loaded? I am not so well familiar with Linux but can do some optimizations if you guide me, thank you very much for your help.

  4. #4
    If you are currently with OpenVZ I'd suggest you move to Xen which personally I like it stability.
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  5. #5
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    How much are you paying for that VPS now? I would recommend a lower end dedicated server. Disk space and bandwidth is not your bottle neck it's CPU and RAM.

    What is your budget?

    - Daniel

  6. #6
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    I would agree with Daniel; the easiest solution would probably be a cheap dedicated server. I would recommend using http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/pro...rootserver/ex4

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by ataozcelik View Post
    Currently I'm in a VPS server with this spec:

    Disk: 75 GB
    RAM: 2 GB
    OS: CentOS
    Traffic: 450 GB
    That should be more than enough for your application, as long as the VPS node isn't oversold and you have at least 2 processor cores available. I suggest that you convert the vBulletin storage engine to innodb, since that will be faster and more efficient.

    https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/entr...oDB-Conversion

  8. #8
    Thanks all the answers, VPS is in Turkey and I chose that for low ping reasons, but I can consider other options of course. The price is around 95$ I know it's expensive comparatively but this is the usual Turkish market price.

    That should be more than enough for your application, as long as the VPS node isn't oversold and you have at least 2 processor cores available. I suggest that you convert the vBulletin storage engine to innodb, since that will be faster and more efficient.
    I don't know how many cores they have given to us, but I doubt that we have 2 processor cores, I'll check that. I've checked your innoDB recommendation but our forum server is not under heavy load all the time, actually since it is a soccer related forum it gets peaked after our teams games. Do you still think it will be better to convert it into innoDB?

    What about memcache, should I consider it?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by ataozcelik View Post
    I don't know how many cores they have given to us, but I doubt that we have 2 processor cores, I'll check that. I've checked your innoDB recommendation but our forum server is not under heavy load all the time, actually since it is a soccer related forum it gets peaked after our teams games. Do you still think it will be better to convert it into innoDB?

    What about memcache, should I consider it?
    You are probably okay on processors. I would be surprised if you didn't have at least two cores available with a 2 gb memory account.

    I doubt that you'll get much from memcache.

  10. #10
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    This could easily be disk io bound - iostat -x would give you insight into this.

    For the money you are spending I'd look to a cheap dedicated server or high end VPS (such as linode.com) western Europe. Latency wouldn't be much of a problem, and nothing like as bad as you see now.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by ataozcelik View Post
    I've checked your innoDB recommendation but our forum server is not under heavy load all the time, actually since it is a soccer related forum it gets peaked after our teams games. Do you still think it will be better to convert it into innoDB?
    If you are comfortable running without innodb then that's fine, but you should disable it because it uses about 125 mb of memory when it's enabled. Add this to the /etc/my.cnf file.

    skip-innodb

    After mysqld restart your memory usage will be a lot lower. If you need innodb sometime in the future you can always pull that command out.

  12. #12
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    I wouldn't be so sure CPU is fine. I've seen my share of systems that don't advertise the CPU allotment only to find there was a reason why they didn't wanna talk about it upfront.

    Now, I think a VPS is fine but the question is which is the right one. A cheap dedicated can fix the problem easy, but you might run into an oversold or unreliable network, or just one that isn't watched frequently enough to ease your mind about potential downtime. Some of these cheap providers stay up for a long time, but when they go down...boy do they go down.

    Perhaps an SSD to run the SQL, a better CPU allotment, and any optimization that helps lighten the load. I'm just beginning to work with them, but 64u.com is proving to have quite the first impression on me...for what it's worth.
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  13. #13
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    VPS is fine, but you really need to add/enable and optimize a ton of cache settings. vBulletin runs like crud at high traffic and no tweaks. The out-of-the-box setup for vB is only fine for small to medium sites. When it gets large, cache or die.

    Don't use an OpenVZ VPS here.

    You may find that EuroVPS is an excellent fit for location/performance. It costs a little more than the cheapo hosts, but it's definitely worth it. VMPort is another good one, in UK.
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  14. #14
    @jarland 64u.com is in Turkey but I've never heard of them? I think they resell servers from other countries Germany/USA.

    @jroc this server is brand newly installed so iostat is not installed at all as I'm not so familiar with Linux environment I don't want to mess up very much with the running system. I guess I can use yum to install iostat?

    @ajonate I don't think we have innodb running currently. Does it come by default with the vBulletin now?

    Perhaps I should post some of the resource log:

    Code:
    May 04, 2012 07:45:18 PM
     
    Resource
     
    Resource counter_cpu_share_used red alert on environment vps149364.v.sadecehosting.com current value: 88 soft limit: 85 hard limit: 95
    
    May 04, 2012 07:42:18 PM
     
    Resource
     
    Resource counter_memory_share_used green alert on environment linvps05.sadecehosting.com current value: 74 soft limit: 85 hard limit: 95
    These are one of the typical resource alerts I'm getting.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    I suggest that you convert the vBulletin storage engine to innodb, since that will be faster and more efficient.
    The chief benefit to innodb is that its locking model is better for high contention situations. So that may help the OP. In terms of "faster" and "efficient" - well, MyISAM is often faster. However if you have a lot of update/delete activity (which is common in high-concurrency forums), then innodb may help and will be faster in those situation.
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  16. #16
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    ataozcelik - I see no reason why you should jump ship change hosts as so many here want you to do right now. At this juncture, and with your background, I recommend seeking out a linux admin to help you tune and optimize your app and vps. A couple hours will be money well spent.
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