Hosting

Companies often have a difficult time determining when is the right time to upgrade their hosting architecture. There are three hosting methods to consider and each has its unique advantages. Let's start by defining the three hosting alternatives.

Virtual or Shared Hosting -- A server is partitioned among many, typically hundreds, of customers and normally houses their web site and email. They share the connection to the internet as well as applications, bandwidth, processor speed, hard drive, and data transfer. The hosting provider owns and controls this server, so the customers have little flexibility regarding applications or configuration.

Dedicated Hosting -- The server has only one customer on it and he controls all aspects of the server. This provides much greater flexibility but typically the burden of administration must be handled by the customer or outsourced to the hosting provider.

Clustered Hosting -- This is a group of servers integrated together for one customer. Clusters are typically setup to meet one of the following design goals: increased performance or redundancy. As each customer's needs and applications are unique, clusters are custom engineered for their desired purpose. Thus, picking a hosting company with a wide range of experience building clusters is key.

When should you Upgrade from Virtual Hosting to Dedicated Hosting?

Virtual hosting is an inexpensive way to gain access to the internet if you have relatively few pages viewed on your web site or files downloaded. However, it is very easy to outgrow virtual hosting. Ask yourself these questions:

If high volume on someone else's site that shares my virtual hosting server slows down my web site, is it a major issue to me? You are one of many customers on the hosting server and your site can easily be affected by things beyond your control.

Do I need to add an application, such as a database to my site for my customers or employees? Because this hosting server has to meet the needs of many different companies the applications available are typically limited to email and similar basic applications.

Has the volume to my web site increased enough to slow down the response time? The available bandwidth on a virtual hosting server is quite limited. Growth is the leading cause of upgrading to dedicated hosting.

Are the services provided by my virtual hosting server critical to my business or could I easily overlook it if the server went down for a day or two? Virtual hosting is much less reliable than dedicated hosting. You are taking a large risk being on a virtual hosting server if you can not afford your server to be down.

Do I need easy access to experienced engineers to help me support my site? A virtual hosting company may have thousands of clients so it is difficult to get expert support.

If you answered yes to any of these questions it is probably time to seriously consider migrating to a dedicated hosting.

When should you Upgrade from Dedicated Hosting to Clustered Hosting?

Dedicated hosting gives you much greater flexibility and control than virtual hosting, but it still has volume constraints and failures can be caused by a single point of error. Here are questions that should help you determine if it is time for clustered hosting:

Are the services on my server so critical that I can not afford them to be down even an hour or two? Dedicated hosting is much more robust that a virtual hosting, but there are still many single points of error that could cause downtime.

Are so many people trying to access the applications on my dedicated hosting server that it is becoming too slow? Good applications get a lot of use, however as you get many people using them at the same time the system slows down and productivity suffers.

Are so many people visiting my web site or trying to download information that it is becoming too slow? Getting a lot of visitors to your web site is great, but a single dedicated hosting server only can handle so many requests for information before response time slows and potential customers leave.

Would placing applications on different servers simplify troubleshooting performance issues? When too many things get loaded onto a single dedicated hosting server it is very difficult to tell what is causing the problem when troubles start.

Does the traffic volume or system load fluctuate greatly from high to low in unpredictable ways? Trying to handle wide swings in volume on a single dedicated hosting server is very difficult as you end up with too much or too little capacity.

Is my business growing so rapidly that I need an easy way to scale my servers? Adding more servers to handle growth to a properly configured cluster is very easy.

If you answered yes to any of these questions it is probably time to seriously consider migrating to clustered hosting.