Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Advice Needed for Hosting a School Alumni Website...

[Psylocke]

Hi there! This is my first official post to this forum which I found via another site.

I graciously offered my services to help build my old high school's official alumni website.

From a budget standpoint and from my previous experience, I'd opt to go with a shared hosting server such as Bluehost to start. But I'm just wondering what the stress will be like on the site if there's a lot of traffic (e.g. visits and database with all the graduated users and their profiles). Should a dedicated server be an option (school's been around for 25 years... over 100 grads in each year)?

The site will use the following elements:

• CMS (most likely Drupal)
• Flash (for photo slideshows)
• Video (possible, but will most likely be a few streaming flv's)
• Forum
• Simple payment system for sign-ups and donations (e.g. PayPal)

Our budget isn't that large, but if this can be done effectively on a shared server without worry of any major downtimes and slowdowns, then I'll opt to do that. Otherwise, having a dedicated server may prove more beneficial in the long-run.

Thanks in advance!

[Brett M]

You might actually go for a VPS if you are looking for something in the middle of Shared/Dedicated. It would give you the advantages of being able to handle the stress of a larger amount of traffic/resources, and would keep your budget low, because VPS servers tend to run cheaper than dedicated servers.

[DDT]

I think you might be overestimating traffic demands over time with this style site. Sure you have 500 alumni but not all will participate regularly and those who do won't likely all be on at the same time (unlike a busy forum with say 500 visitors at once) and the "new" will wear off... so a good "higher-end" shared plan should handle it ...unless there is something unusual about your school (especially geared to techno-geeks who are on-line a lot or something) .

[markjut]

To be honest I think you will be fine on a good shared hosting provider, if in a few years the traffic gets really heavy you might consider upgrading, but for that kind of site shared hosting will suffice in most circumstances

[Mxhub]

I would go for shared hosting and as the site grows, you can upgrade to bigger hosting plan or to a VPS/dedicated server.

[ljprevo]

I would recommend http://www.alumniarchive.net/

My high school used them.

[magicwebhosting]

Definitely shared. Even if they all got on at once, your server could most likely still handle it.

[john8]

I think a normal shared plan will be enough, 25 years old and 100 grads every year, that means 2500 grads total. But, let's say every user will visit the site once every week, and the visiting last 20 minutes averagely. So, the concurrent users is about 10.

The above calculation is a little subjective, but true reflect something, and if the shared plan can't fit your need, you can upgrade to VPS easily.

[BluewaveHosted]

yes, I agree, shared would do fine. And you can always upgrade later if necessary.

[Psylocke]

Thanks for the great advice everyone! It was really helpful. I think I'll go with shared hosting. Now it's just a matter of choosing which host!

[Jedito]

What's your budget? do you know approximately how much space are you going to use?

[Psylocke]

Originally Posted by Jedito

What's your budget? do you know approximately how much space are you going to use?

Very low... we're going on donations right now... lol. I know Bluehost is $6.95/month pre-paid for 2 years, but I'm just wondering if there's any shared hosting provider that'll be a better choice.

Space I'm not too sure of at the moment, but I would think that it'll be at least 5GB to start off (I'm using one of the other site's I'm working on as an estimate... it's running Drupal w/ a bunch of modules and is already at 3GB)

[Jedito]

Well, you'll need to take care of the Drupal modules, those may use a lot of Memory Per process and you may have problems with the PHP configuration of the servers, also, with the resources.

If you're not very much concern with the uptime and speed, then, maybe bluehost may be a good alternative, so it may be dreamhost.

[Kaumil]

Originally Posted by Psylocke

Very low... we're going on donations right now... lol. I know Bluehost is $6.95/month pre-paid for 2 years, but I'm just wondering if there's any shared hosting provider that'll be a better choice.

Space I'm not too sure of at the moment, but I would think that it'll be at least 5GB to start off (I'm using one of the other site's I'm working on as an estimate... it's running Drupal w/ a bunch of modules and is already at 3GB)

Every customer endures a different experience. For the most part, every legitimate business keeps customers happy. You'll just have to take a leap and feel it out. Best of luck.