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01-07-2009, 04:52 PM #1MommyMellie Guest
I have spent several hours on this forum over the past few days doing some research and have officially confused myself. I am a volunteer with a nonprofit organization and our online forums (running on vbulletin) are maxing out the database SQL connections several times per day. The host has a max_user_connections limit of 15 but doesn't have an intermediary step from shared hosting to dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is cost-prohibitive and the rest of our site has more than enough room to grow on our current hosting plan (including traffic bandwidth, disk space, etc).
We are planning to register a new domain name for the forums and move them off to another hosting provider. I donate the hosting fees to the organization and I don't have much of a budget to work with ($20/mo or so ideally). I am looking for recommendations for a hosting provider that will support a somewhat busy forum (usually only between 30-50 users online at once but anywhere between 1,000 and 2,500 pageviews per day) and also allow a stepped growth plan (instead of from shared straight to dedicated.)
I've seen Hawk Host, Siteground and URLJet mentioned frequently on posts here and over at vBulletin but I don't want to just jump into a new host and face a similar problem in the future.
Any guidance or suggestions would be much appreciated.
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01-07-2009, 05:11 PM #2Disabled
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Your website has hardly outgrown a shared hosting environment. A MySQL max_user_connections limit of 15 is very low and even large oversellers (such as HostGator) offer more.
What are your current storage and data transfer requirements? You don't need a VPS or dedicated server; any host geared towards quality and reliability should have absolutely no trouble serving your website.
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01-07-2009, 05:12 PM #3Web Hosting Master
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It does not seem your forum is already a big problem on shared hosting; obviously its hard to tell without more details but the amount of users and total of page views and not that shocking; also the user_connections is set quite low, maybe they use persistent connections on their server; i believe you can disable this in your php.ini mysql.allow_persistent = Off (if your host allows you to change your php.ini.
Furthermore your upgrade path could go from Shared to Semi-Dedicated or VPS (where the first one is preferred if you can not manage the system yourself and/or do not need to make very specific OS changes) only after this Dedicated servers should be an option.
Hope this helps you on your way.
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01-07-2009, 05:19 PM #4MommyMellie Guest
Thank you both for your feedback, I have also determined that 15 is low which I guess makes me feel better about the financial output for a new host. Our site is hosted on Pair Networks and aside from this, we are extremely happy with the service (I've had my personal and business sites hosted with them for years.)
I just checked the php.ini and mysql.allow_persistent is set to on but I have it set to off in the vbulletin config.php; now to figure out if the config.php over rides the php.ini or if I may have to see if we can adjust the php.ini. Thanks for mentioning that, one more thing for me to look at.
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01-07-2009, 05:19 PM #5WHT Addict
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If you are having issues with your current host and your forum continues to grow, it may be a good time to transfer to a VPS solution. If you look around, you should be able to find a VPS solution with a decent control panel for a price near the top of your budget. However, that will allow the website to grow with the new VPS provider until the day where you actually need a dedicated server.
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01-07-2009, 05:20 PM #6Web Hosting Master
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How many customers do you have on the forum at the same time (peaks and average)? have you installed something like a shoutbox or similar?
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01-07-2009, 05:42 PM #7MommyMellie Guest
No shoutbox and no plugins. The average users online is about 30, max online was 214 but was on the day the forums opened since then the max online has been right about 100. There are about 300 active users - active users are those that have logged on within the past 30 days.
There are 3,435 threads and 21,531 posts.
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01-07-2009, 05:54 PM #8Web Hosting Master
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Look for a provider offering semi-dedicated and/or VPS plans. Although you should be fine on a regular shared hosting plan for now, you might need to upgrade shortly after to a larger shared hosting plan as your forums continue to grow because vbulletin has been becoming quite resource intensive with their constantly growing features list.
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01-07-2009, 06:37 PM #9Web Hosting Master
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IMHO, you should be fine in a shared host, your site doesn't seems like outgrow the shared hosting limits.
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01-07-2009, 07:02 PM #10Web Hosting Master
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15 max user connections is pretty low for a shared web host. Have you talked to your provider about this? Maybe you could get them to increase it to at least 50. Your forum doesn't seem like it would require a VPS or dedicated server. If your current provider isn't willing to increase the limit, even if you upgrade to a higher shared hosting plan then I would just recommend you to go find a new shared host that has higher limits.
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01-07-2009, 07:34 PM #11WHT Addict
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check out iMountain.com. they can handle your needs with ease on a shared plan and offer a 50% discount for non-profits
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01-07-2009, 07:44 PM #12Web Hosting Industry Expert
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I think you would be fine on a shared plan, most shared hosts offer at least 25 simultaneous connections and it's not uncommon to have 40~80. When you shop around for another host make sure to ask them about the maximum SQL connections.
A VPS or Semi-Dedicated would be a good next step but I don't believe that you need to take that step just yet.
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01-07-2009, 07:51 PM #13JabbieCom Guest
You could always look into moving onto a vps if you are having some problems. You can find a cheap vps provider for around $25 but i really dont think that moving away from shared hosting is 'needed' yet
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01-07-2009, 09:05 PM #14Junior Guru
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It appears pair.com limits MySQL connections to 15..
Here is their limits written on their site:
http://www.pair.com/policies/dbresource.html
Seems low, but I guess thats how they keep it so reliable
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01-07-2009, 09:25 PM #15MommyMellie Guest
I agree that it is low but I am happy otherwise. I added an .htaccess file to set the mysql.allow_persistent to off so we'll see if that helps.
I've got a ton of other web projects for the nonprofit right now and would rather not deal with this so if this solution works for a few months then I'd be elated.
Thank you all for your input and feedback.
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01-07-2009, 10:28 PM #16Web Hosting Master
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Agreed with the above, 15 seems low. With only 30 users on at a time it really shouldn't be taxing resources much. You might shop for some other shared hosts and if you don't find oneyou like as was said there's always VPS and you can have as many connections as you want. It just seems your shared has low limits and a shared should handle that much traffic w/o problems; but we may not be seeing the whole picture.
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01-07-2009, 11:25 PM #17Retired Moderator
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I must say I'm surprised that at 1000-2500 page views per day, you manage to reach the 15 connections limit. Rather than change hosts, I'd focus on making sure there's nothing weird going on, that persistent connections is off (I'd check with Pair to get confirmation that your attempts to address that are the right ones).
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01-07-2009, 11:41 PM #18MommyMellie Guest
ldcdc - I tend to agree with you and I spent a good portion of the day reading up on fine tuning the server and made several changes again tonight. It just didn't seem like it was realistic to be maxing it out. Thank you for your feedback as it makes me feel a bit better about my desire to troubleshoot instead of flee to a new host.
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01-08-2009, 12:06 AM #19Disabled
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Mommy, I agree with ldcdc as well. There has to be some sort of a server related configuration issue or maybe a issue with your vbulletin configuration. Not the mention as already pointed out that a max_user_connections limit of 15 is very restrictive to say the least.
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01-08-2009, 05:33 AM #20Retired Moderator
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ldcdc - I tend to agree with you and I spent a good portion of the day reading up on fine tuning the server and made several changes again tonight. It just didn't seem like it was realistic to be maxing it out. Thank you for your feedback as it makes me feel a bit better about my desire to troubleshoot instead of flee to a new host.
Please do let us know how that goes. Pair has a reputation for hosting high traffic websites. You should be able to grow to around 100 users online at once on quality shared hosting before needing to upgrade.
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01-10-2009, 07:55 PM #21Web Hosting Master
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We personally allow 25 concurrent connections, but most people don't understand how difficult it is to actually max that out consistently.
I honestly can't imagine your boards reaching the 15 limit (as previously stated) - are you running any modifications that may be going wacky / poorly made (shoutbox, games, etc)?
I would try to diagnose if it's truly a issue with the host or the software you're using - as you may soon find out its the latter.
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01-10-2009, 07:56 PM #22Web Hosting Guru
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You shouldn't use shared hosting any way with forums. Even well written ones like vBulletin or IBP run much much better on VPS and with the cost of a VPS anymore, its just easier and makes more sense to use a VPS over shared hosting for forums.
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01-10-2009, 08:04 PM #23Web Hosting Guru
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You shouldn't use shared hosting any way with forums. Even well written ones like vBulletin or IBP run much much better on VPS and with the cost of a VPS anymore, its just easier and makes more sense to use a VPS over shared hosting for forums.
Can you please explain a little bit more why "Even well written ones like vBulletin or IBP run much much better on VPS and with the cost of a VPS anymore, its just easier and makes more sense to use a VPS over shared hosting for forum" because for me it does not make any sense?
Why you think that it run much better on VPS? Everything depend on setting of server on shared hosting and VPS.
I disagree completely wiith you.
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01-10-2009, 08:41 PM #24Web Hosting Guru
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I do not think you have necessarily outgrown shared hosting for your forum.
If your forum is decently written, and configured correctly, your current limit of 15 concurrrent mysql connections should be fine up to, i dunno, maybe 200 visitors browsing the forum at one time.
The really key thing is to make sure that your forum software does NOT try to keep a mysql connection open for each visitor for as long as they are at the site.
That type of configuration is fine, even good, on a dedicated server, but it is inappropriate on a shared server.
On a shared server your scripts should connect, make the query, and disconnect. The typical mysql query takes a tiny tiny tiny fraction of a second to complete. So you can have many visitors visiting pages which each request data from the database - so long as the connection CLOSES when the query completes.
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01-10-2009, 09:30 PM #25Web Hosting Master
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It appears pair.com limits MySQL connections to 15..
Here is their limits written on their site:
http://www.pair.com/policies/dbresource.html
Seems low, but I guess thats how they keep it so reliable
Wow, I am surprised to see such a limitation at Pair - I always thought they are a high end host, but with such ridiculous policies...