Hello,

I am glad I found this wanderful resource. Hopefully some of you could give me your input/advice.

Currently, we operate a rapidly growing, seasonal ecommerce site. We currently have one server, that hosts both our website and the site database.

During peak traffic periods, we are getting complaints of server timeouts and server too busy errors. Our site uses alot of bandwith - 1200 GB this month. I feel that we have reached our max for one server.

We are looking at improving to reduce the issues. We know we have to move our dbase to its own dedicated server. We are also being sold on using 2 webservers with a load balancer to distribute the traffic accordinly.

So, with 2 webservers and 1 dbase server, and load balancer, this new concept will more than double our annual hosting costs. But I also know that we have been operating on the cheap and can't afford to have timeouts and errors.

So, I was wandering, what are your thoughts on this? We run IIS and the site is in asp.net with a mssql dbase.

Any input or ideas are greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

Shawn

My knowledge is Linux-based, not Windows-based. Unfortunately, most hosting forums seem to be more populated by Linux-savvy people than by Windows-admins. I'm currently having a nasty time trying to find a new Windows server provider for my Windows clients - there just don't seem to be too many out there, and they're difficult to find. But I'll try and provide some basic thoughts and alternatives.

You say that your site is 'seasonal' - so I'm guessing that there are two, maybe three months out of the year when you need the extra server power, and the other nine where you don't? You might see about talking with a provider about a regular arrangement where you lease a server for that quarter, and then let the contract lapse. If your 'seasonal' site has a sufficiently heavy pull twice a year, or a regular six concurrent months out of twelve, you might need to bite the bullet and beef up.

Also, perhaps you'd want to try out how your site might perform using one web server and one dedicated DB server. It might end up that you wouldn't need to use three servers and a load balancer quite yet. (You'd know that better, though, since you have actual access to the numbers.)

Hey,
I dont have much windows experience either, but have you thought about upgrading your current situation?
A 10Mbps connection can pull over 3000 gigs of transfer monthly if maxed out 24/7, so I dont see why you couldn't maybe beef up the hardware and request a faster line if needed? Im not sure if this will be a cheaper option, but its worth a shot. Good luck.

This is true. You say you're currently operating on the cheap... intoning you have a cheap system, i.e. celeron 2.2ghz, 256mb ram etc etc - If you beef up this server to a Dual Processor, or Dual Core machine, hyperthread it, get a few gb's of ram in on it and get your provider to tweak it, you may experience a more enjoyable speedy site.

As for getting the database on a seperate server, I definitely recommend this anyway. See if you can get them linked on a local VLAN, to save remote database calls across the internet.

Shawn if you can post your current server specs everyone might be able to help you out a bit better. As it's been said, you might not need to go all out with three servers and load balancing just yet, and the downfall to having a server only a couple months out of the year for the DB is you would probably have to reconfigure that server every year, and then remove sensitive information after you're done with it, which could get tedious.

If you're willing, post your current server specs and let's see if there's something easier that can be done. Perhaps even just upgrading the RAM will help, or moving to the aforementioned dual system.