Hosting

[megamuel]

Please bear with me as I know nothing about this!

I am currently paying someone to create a website for me which I have just purchased the domain name for. It is a very feature rich website as it will contain a virtual town in which the user will navigate so there will be a lot to load. How can I ensure that it runs fast and smooth? What sort of hosting do I need to purchase? Is there a specific type of hosting for websites like this? Clouds? VPS'? What's it all about?! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sam.

 

[Posilan]

Please bear with me as I know nothing about this!

I am currently paying someone to create a website for me which I have just purchased the domain name for. It is a very feature rich website as it will contain a virtual town in which the user will navigate so there will be a lot to load. How can I ensure that it runs fast and smooth? What sort of hosting do I need to purchase? Is there a specific type of hosting for websites like this? Clouds? VPS'? What's it all about?! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sam.

Hi Sam,

You need to ask your designer what (if any) scripting language he is using. If it's PHP/Perl, you need Linux hosting if it's asp/asp.net you need Windows hosting.

Also, check if there are any database requirements (MySQL/MSSQL etc)

Steve

 

[webhostuk]

Selecting your hosting package really depends on your website requirement, diskspace and bandwidth and hardware requirement. This depends on your website size and traffic you expect, if you are expecting normal traffic shared hosting is fine. If you have some special script or cron running with higher range traffic you should think for VPS or dedicated server.

 

[Rudi]

If it's PHP/Perl, you need Linux hosting

Fully disagree with this

Anyway - To get your website running fast and smooth completely depends on what your website is doing. I assume from your description that it's a dynamic website and as such will be using a scripting language, which also makes me assume that (and I hope to God I am right (but it's all too common that this isn't the case..)) you will have picked a competent developer.

In this case, said competent developer would be able to advise you on what hosting would be best based on your traffic requirements.

My personal advice for a starting website is to start small, very small. You may think that your website is very complex and you're going to be getting 10000 visitors per month, but that's not always how it turns out in reality. I would start by getting some shared hosting (You can get decent shared hosting (not the absolute crap (ie. those that advertise themselves as 'unlimited')) for around £6/mo) and see what your traffic is like.

If you need to scale up, do it appropriately. Go with a small VPS and get it setup, this should be fairly easy to do and some providers will even come with a preconfigured hosting environment (if not, Windows hosting is easiest (and probably best all round regardless)).

If you still need more power you have several options, and can always come back to this post and more advice can be given. Just know that a dedicated server is NOT(!!!!!!!) the next step up from a VPS not being able to handle the load.

 

[Posilan]

Fully disagree with this

Why? It's always better to choose the OS that natively supports the language you want to use - and in the case of PHP and Perl, that's Linux.

Steve

 

[Rudi]

Why? It's always better to choose the OS that natively supports the language you want to use - and in the case of PHP and Perl, that's Linux.

Perl maybe, PHP, not at all.

There's nothing more native about running PHP on *nix than there is for running it on Windows (infact the same applies to Perl I guess, but nobody uses that anyway).

Also by running it on Windows you can take advantage of WinCache (which outperforms APC/Zend Optimiser in all tests that I have ran), along with IIS 7.5 for stability and FastCGI to make it faster. Of course the stability/faster doesn't apply if you would suggest running Lighty/nginx also, but when it comes to Apache I stand by it

 

[stugster]

...suggest running Lighty/nginx also, but when it comes to Apache I stand by it

Pfft.. Get out clause!!
What about cherokee

 

[TechKing]

Please bear with me as I know nothing about this!

I am currently paying someone to create a website for me which I have just purchased the domain name for. It is a very feature rich website as it will contain a virtual town in which the user will navigate so there will be a lot to load. How can I ensure that it runs fast and smooth? What sort of hosting do I need to purchase? Is there a specific type of hosting for websites like this? Clouds? VPS'? What's it all about?! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sam.

The best suggestion i can give you is to start with the small shared webhosting from any stable and fast provider .I will recommend hostgator,mnchost.com,hostdime,etc becuase they are reliable and cheap .

Don't go with VPS/Dedicated server for a simple website having less visitors (about 200 per days).It will just waste of money and nothing more intelligence.

 

[astutiumRob]

It is a very feature rich website as it will contain a virtual town in which the user will navigate so there will be a lot to load

What is it being coded in ?

Is there a specific type of hosting for websites like this?

Probably, depends on your answer to the above ...

 

[Spearmint]

I'm totally green to all this techy chat, but as an observer, what started off as a simple sort of question has turned into total confusion for the OP!

Disagreements between various parties, differences in opinions, loads of gobbledygook, its no wonder us laymen get bewildered by it all!

 

[megamuel]

Hey guys! Sorry for the slow reply! Been enjoying a week off work! Spearmint, I agree it is all a bit confusing! Anyway, I've had a work with the developer, he says he is using Perl and the disk space will be approx 200GB. As for hardware requirements etc. He said "hosting on computers with at least 1.7Ghz processor and at least 1GB memory".... Or something along those lines! Make sense? Anyway, the hosting company he has suggested is http://www.inmotionhosting.com/ (inmotionhosting - in case my link gets removed!). Seems pretty decent and starts at $5.95 per month, and it boasts "Max Speed Zone Enabled..." Whatever that is! Also has unlimited disk space. Can any of you web gurus take a look and let me know what you think? Any alternatives? The most important thing for me is that this site runs quickly on peoples computers. If it doesn't, users will get bored and not use it. This is more important than price for me. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Sam.

 

[magarethayes]

Better to use linux hosting, it is more safe and chances of hacking are very rare.

 

[TechKing]

, I've had a work with the developer, he says he is using Perl and the disk space will be approx 200GB. As for hardware requirements etc. He said "hosting on computers with at least 1.7Ghz processor and at least 1GB memory".... Or something along those lines! Make sense? Anyway, the hosting company he has suggested is http://www.inmotionhosting.com/ (inmotionhosting - in case my link gets removed!).

As per your requiremnet ,i will suggest you to go with VPS rather than shared hosting.Inmotionhosting or anyother hosting,still they tell unlimited ,but in there tos you will find the truth.
see here

Unlimited Disk Space & Bandwidth

While IMH does not meter disk space & bandwidth, the purpose of an IMH hosting account is to host web sites. Using a hosting account primarily for online file storage or archiving electronic files is prohibited.

IMH Personal & Business Class hosting are shared hosting environments, so to ensure fast & reliable service to all of our clients, accounts that adversely affect server or network performance must correct these issues or will be asked to upgrade to a virtual or dedicated server.

and one more thing,go with stable/reliable VPS Provider for quality VPS rather than cheap one as most of the time cheap ones are oversold ..

 

[Rudi]

Better to use linux hosting, it is more safe and chances of hacking are very rare.

??? Linux servers get broken into more than Windows Servers.

I've had a work with the developer, he says he is using Perl <snip> He said "hosting on computers with at least 1.7Ghz processor and at least 1GB memory"

Sorry but is your developer living in the 80s?

Anyway - If you want performance from a Perl site *shudder* then you need to be looking for a somewhat specialist host. The reason being is that Perl runs as CGI, which means a new process is spawned for every request. If you go onto cPanel Server (last time I checked..) that is how it would be setup, with CGI and not optimised at all, you will not get your requirement of a fast service to your customers.

What you want to look for are these key points:

• Perl setup as FastCGI
• Some form of Perl Caching module enabled

If you can't find one (which I think may be difficult), I would suggest a VPS so that you can set it up for yourself (or get someone knowledgeable to do so) and get the best performance.

Hope that helps, I'm still shocked that it's being written in Perl

 

[megamuel]

Thanks again for the replies everyone. Rudi, what is exactly that you don't like about Perl? I know nothing about it. Anyway, other than the virtual town element which I think is being coded in something else (maybe flash), the website will actually pretty simple and basic. So I'm not sure any complex programming will be required for that.

Sam.

 

[Rudi]

Thanks again for the replies everyone. Rudi, what is exactly that you don't like about Perl? I know nothing about it. Anyway, other than the virtual town element which I think is being coded in something else (maybe flash), the website will actually pretty simple and basic. So I'm not sure any complex programming will be required for that.

There's nothing really wrong with Perl, it's just a seriously dated language and didn't realise that developers still wrote sites in it these days.

I guess if the developer was university educated then he might just think it's a logical step, since they probably studied it for reporting/general logic development at uni.