Topic: Hosting your own site???

We have a requirement to have a portion of our website hosted on our database server but currently only have ADSL 1Mbps line with max 256Mbps upstream.

I am considering putting in a second line just for the web server connection, but cant afford the cost of leased lines so am looking at SDSL 512 Kbps or 1Mbps on 1:1 contention.

I wanted to check I have got the figures right.....

I don't think 512 will give us a fast enough connection based on;

58 concurrent users at any time (max so far last year)
342 hits per day (max last 6 months)
biggest file size is 0.0712 MB

0.0712 MB (max page size) x 58 (page views at one time) = 4.1296 MB x 8 (to convert MBytes into Mbits) = 33.03 Mbps.

I am informed you only get 70% of you actual bandwidth even on 1:1 contention so a 512 line would actually be 358.4 kbps (44kbps)

So I work out that for 58 users to download the same page (0.0712MB x 58 = 4.1296MB) at the same time, download calculator for a 512 line says it would take 1 minute 766 seconds

Even with page sizes limited to 37990Bytes = 34 seconds.

Do I need at least 33Mbps line to cope????

Any comments thoughts greatly appreciated!

Cheers

Ben

Google has an excellent tool, you can enter an equation, and convert to a different type. (Edit: By the way I think you want to divide by 8, not multiply by 8.)

http://www.google.com/search?q=1000+Kbps+to+KB%2Fs

A few other things you might want to check is if your ISP blocks certain ports. I know mine blocks port 80, so no luck there. But if you're on a commercial line there's no problems.

A few other things to consider would be average file size verses max file size, average load of users, and most popular page (excluding the home page). You may have 58 users max, but that might have been a peak. The average might be 10 or so. So I'd take into consideration the two most used pages, and the index. Not just the largest file.

I guess if you want, what you could do is use the database server to host larger files, or non website pages, and just update your links.

[Edit 2:]A wicked handy tool is "ab" which lets you test your apache setup. You might be on a slow line, but another bottleneck is just your Disk Speed and Processor (eg: if you're doing PHP). Here's an article I found last night you might like http://phplens.com/phpeverywhere/tuning-apache-php

rukuartic@halflght:~/$ whatis life
life: nothing appropriate.

(Edited by rukuartic on 01-11-2007 15:15)

(Edited by rukuartic on 01-11-2007 15:20)

Thanks Rukuartic,

I took the peak as a maximum load the bandwidth needs to support but you are right there is probably only 10 page requests at one time.

All the WebPages have a small footprint as they are xhtml and imported css based so this helps.

You are right, to work out the Mb (Mbit) to actual MB (Mbyte) you divide by 8 i.e. as in your Google link a 1 Mbps line only gives you 0.125 MBps per second, so if i were looking for the bandwidth needed for delivering 4.128 MBps I would need to X it by 8 to get the required bandwidth in Mbits... I think?.

ISP is fine, its a business SDSL line, I am thinking about hosting certain parts of the site with a good host but that makes things more complex.

I am planning to use IIS on our windows 2003 server - is this wise do you think?

Cheers

Ben

Oh well, I'm not much of an IT person. This was just stuff I picked up off of the internet. Its kinda a hobby, but I'm not a consultant.

I'm a Linux person, so naturally my result would be biased. I actually haven't done a side by side comparison on performance to see which is better. I know some hosts will let you host websites (just a simple FTP upload, they manage everything) for only about two or three USD a month. That might be easier to do, but I personally like to have a console to work with.

rukuartic@halflght:~/$ whatis life
life: nothing appropriate.

You're right, you're not going to get the full bandwidth. It depends on a lot of factors, including the quality of your phone lines, your distance from the exchange, the carrier frequency...

But, look at the priorities: why do you want to host this site yourself? Why not find yourself a good webhost, someone to whom this kind of thing is their entire business model, and use them instead? Weigh it up as a cost/benefit thing. What ongoing costs will you get from using an external webhost, and what costs will you get from the price of maintaining your own server and a high-enough bandwidth link to ensure high availability and connectivity? What will it cost you in time maintaining it externally vs maintaining it internally? I think your best option is to host the site and database externally. There are people who make thier entire living off ensuring that your site will be highly available and that regular backups are maintained and all that good stuff. Make use of them. Believe me, it'll cost you a lot less over the long term.

Also, if you want to host this on a Windows box (and I'd recommend you don't) then make sure it's a dedicated webserver. Don't host it on a machine that you also use as a file server, mail server, Active Directory Domain Master, or any of that other Windows clutter.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

(Edited by Skaarjj on 01-12-2007 15:12)

(Edited by Skaarjj on 01-12-2007 15:13)

Thanks for the feedback.

I would not be going through the hassle of this and the problems I know we will experience if it were not a absolute requirement.

We use a CRM application that supports job search, online timesheets, client logins etc that has to run on our own network and the web application has to run on the same server as our CRM application due to performance etc. according to the vendor.

We have a dedicated server running the CRM application (2x dual core xeon processors, 4GB RAM) - all it has to do is sql queries and after profiling the server, the systems engineers feel it would have no problem managing the hosting.

The dedicated SDSL 1:1 line to the webserver we are planning has no uptime SLA but apparently we can except 99.7% uptime.

We are also looking at a failover where if the SDSL line goes down it will switch to our contented 8Mb / 833Kb ADSL line that carries our email and web surfing bandwidth - I have no idea how this will work tho, just that it is possible.

Look forward to any better surgestions to this of course.

Cheers

Ben

(Edited by FatRod on 01-15-2007 12:13)

oooppps double post.

(Edited by FatRod on 01-15-2007 12:13)

quote:

---

The dedicated SDSL 1:1 line to the webserver we are planning has no uptime SLA but apparently we can except 99.7% uptime

---

Be wary of this. Be very, very wary. If they're boasting about 99.7% uptime, they can give you an SLA contract stating that. If they refuse to, it's an indication that they aren't confident in their ability to deliver.

And, yes, the failover to the secondary link is entirely possible. Hell, under Linux I'd use a shell-script that pings a local external* address (like, say, the other side of your ISP's gateway) on a regular basis and, if it fails to contact it during a time-out, it drops out that interface and brings up the alternate. I have no idea how you'd do this under Windows, though.

*I know this sounds like a contradiction, but it really isn't. Your ISP's gateway will be part of your local network once oyu're connected because it's your gateway to the extranet locations. So it's both external (because it's not yours) and local (because it's part of your network).


Justice 4 Pat Richard

Stil... in my mind, unless the database queries to your network are the only thing on that site,
a rented server + a pipeline just for those requests ( or even a reverse proxy just for the pages
with dbaccess) will be much faster.

It's down as well though if your line goes down...