Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : What determines the "speed" of a PHP/MySQL db?

[cinepro]

My business runs on one PHP/MySQL database. It isn't huge (zipped backups are about 10mb).

Our original provider (VPS with Jumpline.com) was fine until they upgraded something, and our db started randomly dropping tables every week or so. Since my business would grind to a halt until I could restore the table from a backup, that was unacceptable (and expensive).

So my programmer relocated the db to another server, which solved the problem. I'm going to ditch Jumpline and get a new service. (I've also had a problem with one of my email accounts occasionally never receiving certain emails, which I hope will be solved with a new provider).

I tried a "business" plan with Westhost, but when I loaded up a test of my db, it was just too slow.

So, my question is, what should I look for to determine the requirements of my host? I obviously need rock solid dependability, but I need the db to zip really quickly (i.e. pages need to load really fast). I could sign up with several different providers who offer 30-day quarantees and try them out for speed, but there's got to be a better way.

Should I look at the amount of RAM or CPU speeds? Are those the critical factors for the speed of my DB?

FWIW, I'm looking at SLhost since they've got a great sale right now on their VPS plans.

My budget is $20-40/month. I need MySQL and PHP, obviously, as well as a control panel, email and ftp account management and dedicated IP. Also SSH access. Good spam filtering for the emails would be nice. Other than that, I don't need too much. I don't care if it's shared or VPS, I just need rock-solid stability and blazing speed on the db.

I don't need much space or bandwidth (I'm only using 1.7GB out of 4.0GB for storage right now, and 1.7GB out of 40GB for bandwidth!)

[Illustrious]

Do you want the raw figures for a server's speed?

Hostsentry.net is a pretty good source for those. Otherwise, it's really hard to get a straightforward answer for exactly how fast someone's PHP or MySQL responds. You should always shoot some pre-sales questions.

As for what determines the speed, there's a variety of factors. Compression and optimization, platform, server power, server load, etc. all have an impact.

[pztup]

You should look at Medialayer, they use highly optimized servers with the best web server software (litespeed). We make high usage of php and MySQL, we run about 20 simple and 5 complex sql queries for each page generated and it always generated within 0.00x seconds. Our pages are also SSL secured and still are lighting fast you simply can't compare them to any one else.

I suggest you get a custom quote from them since you only need AppLayer LX with more space

[ImageLeet]

Originally Posted by cinepro

Should I look at the amount of RAM or CPU speeds? Are those the critical factors for the speed of my DB?

database speed infact greatly depends upon available CPU resources on server, your budget of $40 is good enough even to give VPS an try and get it optimized for your business.

[jonwatson]

We've recently been through a fight with MySQL5 on one of our servers. It seems that MySQL 5 can create rather large tmp files if used in conjunction with poorly optimized scripts and that can make bad mojo on the server.

I'm wondering if the upgrade that Jumpline did was to MySQL 5? If so, you may be looking at the same issue we saw. It might also explain why you're seeing different performance levels on different hosts.

Out of curiosity, you may want to determine (probably through a PHP Info if available) which version of MySQL these guys are running. You may find that it's the MySQL 5 hosts that are slow and therefore know to shop for a MySQL4 host (for example).

[layer0]

You may find that it's the MySQL 5 hosts that are slow and therefore know to shop for a MySQL4 host (for example).

We've been running MySQL 5 for ages, and have had no such performance issues...if anything, performance is better than MySQL 4.

[ldcdc]

Should I look at the amount of RAM or CPU speeds? Are those the critical factors for the speed of my DB?

They can determine the maximum performance you can expect. The real life performance though, will depend heavily on the load place on the server by the other users.

[jonwatson]

Originally Posted by layer0

We've been running MySQL 5 for ages, and have had no such performance issues...if anything, performance is better than MySQL 4.

That hasn't been our experience, but I realize there are many factors and many different experiences out there.

Admittedly, this is a shot in the dark, but if the OP is finding a handful of slow hosts and a handful of fast hosts, I think there is value in comparing the software and versions running on each. A trend may appear that will highlight exactly where the problems lie.

[layer0]

Originally Posted by HostingPuppy

That hasn't been our experience, but I realize there are many factors and many different experiences out there.

Admittedly, this is a shot in the dark, but if the OP is finding a handful of slow hosts and a handful of fast hosts, I think there is value in comparing the software and versions running on each. A trend may appear that will highlight exactly where the problems lie.

At this point, MySQL 4 is EOL, thus many hosts are upgrading to 5 regardless...this is not a software issue.

[HostSentry]

Originally Posted by Illustrious

Do you want the raw figures for a server's speed?

Hostsentry.net is a pretty good source for those. Otherwise, it's really hard to get a straightforward answer for exactly how fast someone's PHP or MySQL responds. You should always shoot some pre-sales questions.

As for what determines the speed, there's a variety of factors. Compression and optimization, platform, server power, server load, etc. all have an impact.

In the interest of accuracy, technically we don't monitor mysql just yet. As you said though, a lot of things (that we do monitor) have an affect. Soon though

I think people are overlooking the fact that a lot of companies have mysql servers. They are specifically designed for the purpose of feeding back information. Granted a fast server requesting it helps.

I've heard of people waiting as much as 3 seconds for a basic response from mysql. At that point you should really pack your bags and leave .

Mysql is just like anything else though, if the CPU load is high expect to be waiting

[allanon]

As for mySQL itself, I have not seen a faster mySQL service than iMountain's...their advertising says 16 CPUs in mySQL and it does seem like it. I run a mySQL backup every night on my 200mb database there. Extremely fast. They let me test out a VPS+mySQL cluster and it works really nice...although I can't see any speed difference between their regular Premium webhosting cluster vs VPS cluster.

As for the PHP side of it, there are plenty of good hosts for straight up PHP/Apache...Reliablesite, Cartika, Medialayer for examples. These guys specialize in Apache speed.

You'll probably find that the clustered hosts have better mySQL speed due to their separation of mySQL to a different server (Dreamhost not included, their mySQL cluster is very average)

[Illustrious]

As for the PHP side of it, there are plenty of good hosts for straight up PHP/Apache...Reliablesite, Cartika, Medialayer for examples. These guys specialize in Apache speed.

Medialayer doesn't run Apache.

You'll probably find that the clustered hosts have better mySQL speed due to their separation of mySQL to a different server (Dreamhost not included, their mySQL cluster is very average)

Not necessarily. Clustering isn't any faster than the I/O transport. It's all about total processing power and reduced server load when it comes to premium clusters.

[allanon]

Originally Posted by Illustrious

Medialayer doesn't run Apache.

That's right, they run Litespeed/Lighttpd which are supposed to be the lighter versions of Apache.

Not necessarily. Clustering isn't any faster than the I/O transport. It's all about total processing power and reduced server load when it comes to premium clusters.

That's simpy untrue and does not make any sense. YOu're only looking at I/O transport and CPU load. You're forgetting the # of tasks. Let's say you have 100 websites on a Clustered server and 100 websites on a standard server.

100 websites running mySQL, Web, Mail, DNS on 1 server
OR
100 websites running on 5 different machines each doing it's own task (mySQL, web, DNS, mail, Control Panel)

Single server webhosting is inferior to clustered webhosting in every way. Why do you think all the large companies use HUGE server clusters for their websites? IBM, Yahoo, Google, Dell, Ebay, etc.

You're trying to say 1 server can equal the power of 5, heck, why not just get 1 server and run a webhosting empire

[Illustrious]

Originally Posted by allanon

That's simpy untrue and does not make any sense. YOu're only looking at I/O transport and CPU load. You're forgetting the # of tasks. Let's say you have 100 websites on a Clustered server and 100 websites on a standard server.

100 websites running mySQL, Web, Mail, DNS on 1 server
OR
100 websites running on 5 different machines each doing it's own task (mySQL, web, DNS, mail, Control Panel)

Single server webhosting is inferior to clustered webhosting in every way. Why do you think all the large companies use HUGE server clusters for their websites? IBM, Yahoo, Google, Dell, Ebay, etc.

You're trying to say 1 server can equal the power of 5, heck, why not just get 1 server and run a webhosting empire

That's not what I'm saying. Sure, if you want to put 100 users on 1 computer vs. 100 users on 5 computers, you'll notice a speed difference. But in the case of the latter, you're paying 5 times as much, all else equal.

If you were to compare 20 users on 1 computer versus 100 users on a cluster of 5, I doubt you'd see much performance gain at all from the cluster.

[layer0]

That's right, they run Litespeed/Lighttpd which are supposed to be the lighter versions of Apache.

To clarify, we use LiteSpeed, and although it is compatible with Apache configuration, it doesn't have any other relation to Apache. (the same goes for Lighttpd, which is not compatible with Apache configuration however)