Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Is this setup good enough for our website?

[DanielR]

Hi!

Long time reader, first time poster.


We are moving our website to an in-house server that's going to be on the windows server 2003 OS. However, I am concerned that our current connection speed may not be enough to promptly serve our customers.


We currently have 10 megs download, 512k upload.


Our server is the following:
Quad-core Xeon at 1.8
4 gigs of ram
2x 15k rpm 160 gig hard drives in raid 1 configuration


Anyways, at any given time we may have up to 10 people on our website. Our pages average between 60KB and 120KB each.


Would this system and internet connection support our needs? Do we need to upgrade the internet connection? If so what would you recommend?
Thanks! I really look forward to your advise.
-Daniel

[Orien]

It might be sufficient for just 10 people. Have you thought about collocation?

[DanielR]

I have read about colocation a few times, but I'm not sure exactly how it would work. Do I take the server to thier location and set it up myself? Would they then allow me access to my server when I need it?

Thanks for the fast reply BTW!

-Daniel

[DanielR]

Actually just did some research about your colocation idea. None if the internet providers in my area will do that. They all want to host on their own servers.

I also spoke with our internet company about our connection. I can boost it up to 1 meg upload for about 40 dollars more. Anything higher than that and the price jumps considerabally.

We do want to do this right however. Do you think 1 meg upload would be enough?

-Daniel

[040Hosting]

DanielR,

I will work, but you do not have any backup lines incase your provider has technical difficulties, thats one of the reasons why collocation would be a good idea.

To answer your question, if you do not offer any downloads it might be enough for 10 concurrent connections at a time. It will not be speedy though.

[iHubNet]

I think colocation solution will be better due to line condition and power issue. and if this server will not use not much b/w, I think you can hold your budget under $100/month

[DanielR]

Colocation is not an option. I've called all the internet service providers in our area and none of them offer this service.

[imountain]

Greetings Daniel

1) You don't need to be close to the server for co-location, just send it out to a reputable host and most offer remote hands/installation.

2) You'll be able to RDP to make any software changes/soft reboots.

On the other side, 1MB is enough if all you ever expect is 10 concurrent connections and you have no downloads. The speed won't be something they'll write home to mother about but it should be sufficient. The common disadvantages of in-house servers are: reliability of bandwith, reliability of power and security.

[DanielR]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I think I may go ahead and spring for the 1.5 meg connection just to be safe. It costs about a hundred dollars more but I guess it's better for the long run.

I did order a pretty good firewall from watchguard, and we are also going to have a software firewall as well. Security probably will not be as good as one of the big guys but I think it will be enough for our needs.

The power could definately be an issue. We did get a UPS that's good for 45-60 mins but if the electric company has any serious issues we could be down for a while.

Anyways, you guys have been more than helpful. Thanks for all your input!

-Daniel