Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Need high performance server to serve ads (2+ million page views/day)

[darkmedia]

I am currently paying $550/month for Rackspace's half-ass managed cloud server (quad core 8 GB RAM) and it does not meet my needs. The server cannot handle 2 million page views/day of ads served on various third party servers and I feel that it should be able to since I have a dual core 1 GB RAM server that is currently serving 1 million page views/day (but it was a rough start to configure and sustain this) for $70/month. When the techs receive a ping alert, they just clear it and move on. I need to tell them to investigate and then they tell me the MaxClients was reached so I need to tell them to resize the server and increase the MaxClients... ridiculous.

What do you guys recommend for an ad serving website?

[Daniel15]

I need to tell them to investigate and then they tell me the MaxClients was reached so I need to tell them to resize the server and increase the MaxClients... ridiculous.

Based on this, I assume you're using Apache. I'd suggest to get rid of Apache and switch to Litespeed (drop-in replacement for Apache), Nginx or Cherokee. You'll see significantly better performance.

[cd/home]

Originally Posted by Daniel15

I'd suggest to get rid of Apache and switch to Litespeed (drop-in replacement for Apache)

Yes, Head for 2 CPU LiteSpeed which has caching you'll see things improve for sure

[Orien]

Originally Posted by Daniel15

Based on this, I assume you're using Apache. I'd suggest to get rid of Apache and switch to Litespeed (drop-in replacement for Apache), Nginx or Cherokee. You'll see significantly better performance.

Agreed... although what was your 1GB RAM server using? If that was using the same software stack, then the problem lies elsewhere.

[tanfwc]

I suggest that you get nginx installed as your front end web server as this has proven a huge success for my client.

[KarlZimmer]

I served 5 million+ ads a day from a 2.4Ghz Celeron box with 1GB of RAM. What software are you using to serve the ads? The software seems to be the problem, not your hardware, imho. A host isn't going to be able to fix the fact the software you selected seems to be inadequate for the job you're using it for.

[Steven]

First off -- Rackspace cloud servers are junk. They may tell you the specs your getting, but its very common to have other users on the same node hording resources affecting you.
Get a real dedicated and never look back.
Most providers can offer you a E3-1230 with 8 to 16gb of ram for a fraction of what you currently pay. I am confident it will walk ontop of that cloud server.

[funkywizard]

A real dedicated server is a much better bet. Even openx, which is not exactly light on resources, can be configured to serve up 20 million ads a day on an x3460 xeon with about 50% cpu usage if you configure it with nginx and php-fpm. A modern E3-1230 is a good 40% faster than this so a real server should handle 2 million pageviews a day fine. It's not exactly trivial to get openx installed properly (and securely!) with nginx but it's certainly possible and the performance is fantastic.

[KarlZimmer]

Originally Posted by funkywizard

A real dedicated server is a much better bet. Even openx, which is not exactly light on resources, can be configured to serve up 20 million ads a day on an x3460 xeon with about 50% cpu usage if you configure it with nginx and php-fpm. A modern E3-1230 is a good 40% faster than this so a real server should handle 2 million pageviews a day fine. It's not exactly trivial to get openx installed properly (and securely!) with nginx but it's certainly possible and the performance is fantastic.

Last I used it, OpenX was a bloated piece of crap... Serving ads is a pretty simple/trivial task, and OpenX just seems to try to make it as complicated as possible. :-)

[funkywizard]

Originally Posted by KarlZimmer

Last I used it, OpenX was a bloated piece of crap... Serving ads is a pretty simple/trivial task, and OpenX just seems to try to make it as complicated as possible. :-)

To be honest I couldn't be bothered to learn how to use it, I had an employee figure it out. We were looking to do direct ad sales and this seemed to be the most viable option for doing reporting and making sure that people were only shown the ads they had a budget for, and doing various defaults and rate limits. Even though I agree it is a bloated piece of crap, it's still pretty popular, and, properly configured, can serve quite a large number of ads from a decent server.

[themedia]

sounds like you need a managed dedicated server, and someone to optimize your config for high traffic, and do proactive work, so you can spend your time knowing that everything runs smooth.

i guess something can be worked out.

[alons]

A dedicated server is much cheaper. Check out the offer sections.
OFF TOPIC : @karl never you had a ad servicing business as well