Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Whats needed fpr VPS node?

[Reece|StormingHost]

Hello,

I am currently looking to expand into VPS hosting.
I am wanting to know what would be needed in terms of software and hardware etc for the VPS node i will be bringing up.

Here is the server i am looking at getting:

DUAL XEON 3.06GHZ 533FSB w/HYPERTHREADING
4GB RAm
500GB HDD
Raid software based ( not sure what would be best Raid 1 -10 etc? )

Wanting to know if this would be good for putting a few VPs's on and what software wold be needed for it?

I am going tof Veportal but anything else needed?

Thanks.

[antony_m]

It would depend on what you forecast on your VPS node in terms of finances. Based on that you would have to put together an action plan with regards to the hardware specifications, software and off course the VPS service offerings, making sure you hit what you want to achieve.

If you're just starting out, I would recommend a decent Quad Core Processor, 8GB RAM, at least 2x 500GB SATA drives RAID1 (hardware). If you do RAID10 all the better but you would need a minimum of 4 drives.

You have to decide if you want to offer both Linux and Windows off the same hardware node and if so you would have to look at VMware or Parallels Bare 4 Metal Server in order to achieve this. Otherwise you need to choose between OpenVZ and Xen unless you want to go with vSphere 4.0 or Virtuozzo.

Finally control panels if you choose to go with OpenVZ or Xen, there are quite a few to choose from: SolusVM, VSControl, VEPortal, VCPanel etc.

I would recommend getting a person who knows how to setup/manage Virtual Environments assist you with this project, else get an outsourced support team to help you with this project. There is nothing worse than having a project slip away because it wasn't maintained properly especially after spending your time, efforts, money on designing it.

Good luck with it!

[Yash-JH]

Originally Posted by Reece|StormingHost

Hello,
Raid software based ( not sure what would be best Raid 1 -10 etc? )
.

I/O is a major constraint in a Virtualized environment, with many operating systems or containers competing for a limited resource. I would suggest Hardware Raid10.

[webhostmaniac]

just plain running linux , use centos 5.3.x the newest of course and disable se linux and install a vps control panel and you should be set. remember to change the server kernel to open vz or xen so it does not think its still a server. It needs to think its a node.

[e-Sensibility]

Originally Posted by Reece|StormingHost

Raid software based ( not sure what would be best Raid 1 -10 etc? )

No matter what else you do, if you care about your customers at all, or your reputation as an ISP at all, steer clear of software RAID. Can you not invest $150 to do things the right way?

[PCS-Chris]

It would work with that machine, but I wouldnt reccomend it.

The lowest spec system I would reccomend for VPS hosting would be:

Core 2 Quad CPU, Preferabley a 9xxx Series
8GB RAM
2x 500GB HDD in RAID-1 (OR 4x 320GB in HW RAID 10)

steer clear of software RAID

May I ask why? Software RAID 1 (mdadm) is excellent, and if you are on a budget I would reccomend using it. The onboard RAID on a motherboard however is a different story.

[e-Sensibility]

Originally Posted by PCS-Chris

May I ask why? Software RAID 1 (mdadm) is excellent, and if you are on a budget I would reccomend using it. The onboard RAID on a motherboard however is a different story.

In my experience, software RAID is fine until something goes wrong. So in a perfect world where power outages, kernel panics, and botched upgrades didn't happen -- sure, software RAID would be great. But in the real world I find that software RAID, over prolonged periods of time, corrupts almost without exception.

Software raid is great for consumer use, etc, but in my mind if you're serious about running a quality hosting business the only way to go is hardware raid + battery backup. It doesn't cost that much, and in the end it's well worth it to pay the modest price of a real controller up front and not have 40 customers complaining in public places about how you lost all of their data because of your corrupted software raid array.