Offtopic: What do you think?

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:59:54 Post Subject: Offtopic: What do you think?

I know it's not exactly on track of what this site normally focuses on but I was looking for some input anyway.

So I bought myself a Foundry ServerIron server load balancer on eBay today. I was going to use it to primarily teach myself a little more about some networking as well as figure out what these things are truly capable of without risking a whole network going down. After I do what I wanted to do, it's a powerful and expensive piece of equipment to waste. I was thinking of putting it to good use along with some servers I have.

So I was thinking of possibly expanding my current, very small but successful webhost from a single cPanel server to have a more advanced option with better uptime and performance. I'm not sure how many of you are into webdesign, but what do you think of the idea of having a high-availability, control panel-less webhosting account available for relatively fair prices? Do you think this would be a successful addition to a small webhost or is it just a waste of time and money?

BeerCheeze · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:06:04 Post Subject:

You're opening up a whole new bag of worms if your try to use the term "high-availability". What do you mean by it? What are your guarantees? How much down time is there? Etc, etc....

Personally... I think if you have something that's working, I wouldn't look to change it. Web hosting is a.... very competitive business, to the point where I would call it a commodity service any more.

*Edit - BTW look at what is considered "high-availability" in today's world... I doubt you can meet that

http://www.forsythe.com/Forsythe/infraservices/servers/server_five9s.jsp

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:37:25 Post Subject:

While that is a good point, 99.999% is probably out of my reach. The "high-availability" mentioned is in terms of load balancing. I've always heard it spoken that way, but I supposed it would be safer to say "fail-over" or "redundant."

I was just interested in the idea because I work on load-balanced sites with my job and have not seen a service like that available to small sites outside of the realm of the very large web hosts. Even then, most of the still don't use load balancing.

I know atleast one of the people who I help run her servers would be more interested in getting hosted with me with this method than have to deal with her own server that continuously has problems. But there's the problem, only one customer for a large operation would put a deep red color in my check book, but then again, that's the risk behind the business.

I do appreciate the feedback and still just thinking about it. I'm just tired of losing customers to those "1TB of space and 5TB of bandwidth for $2.99!" webhosts. Ultimately, some of them return a month or two later, but it is annoying and think something like this would appeal to some of those starting media/social websites that this internet is already full of.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:10:17 Post Subject:

Web hosting is a scary business... so many of those junk companies you mentioned that promise the moon for nothing.

Maybe you could set up something more distinct, like hosting a few VPS hosting accounts?!?

What kind of specs are on that box?

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:19:55 Post Subject:

VPS is also becoming quite common, and the qualm I have with VPSs is that much of the software used can not really be changed without runining the VPS as it is special builds. This mainly applies to Virtuozzo, though. At that point, either go full shared, or get a real dedicated. So that is why I don't like messing with VPSs.

The boxes I have are PowerEdge 2650's with dual Xeon 3.06Ghz, 4GB RAM, PERC 3/Di, up to 5 U160 SCSIs. The ServerIron has 24x 10/100Mbps ports plus 2x SX Fiber gigabit ports.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:14:17 Post Subject:

I think you hit the nail on the head

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:22:28 Post Subject:

Well I already most of the equipment; that is, multiple servers, load balancer, private network switch. They're not a concern of money - already bought and paid for. The money and time that would go into it would be the colocation of the equipment.

But uptime guarantees aside, what about the performance of the balancing? That's the main reason I use load balancing for these friends of mine...and at work- so we can get more traffic without overloading a single server.

But overall, I guess it would be more of a burden, although a fun project as I wanted to deploy my own load-balanced network someday because these other people have inefficient and problematic ways of doing it.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:42:48 Post Subject:

Load balancing is great for a couple things, such as you said high traffic shared across multiple systems. It does also offer higher availability if done correctly.

If you are doing it only for fun, and can afford all the cost, then go for it. It could be fun. Get a few paying customers and it could even be cheap for you.

I am just trying to pass on my experiences, and professional opinions. I would hate to have you spend all kinds of money and get in trouble if I could have said something to save you from all that.

I would also be willing to help you in any design questions, or suggestions. Just be VERY careful in offering things to business, because if it cost them money because of a failure on your part, they might take you to court.