Question for vBulletin forum admins...(server requirement related)
System
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I have some questions about vBulletin and server space / traffic flow. I'm looking to set up a forum for a community that looks like it might need to migrate as the sponsoring company is likely going to drop the bulletin board when it changes ownership. I'm trying gauge what I need to manage the site traffic when looking for a hosting package. Right now the best deal I've found is 200GB space / 2000GB transfer for $12.99 / month. I have no idea how to gauge the requirements. The board seems to be a bit more active than dgrin.com, but not by much ( Threads: 66,953, Posts: 1,036,684, Members: 11,743) since 2003. Any info would be appreciated.
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With that kind of activity you're really going to want to (at least) have a dedicated server with a decent upstream provider. Ideally, colocate your own box in a good datacenter because you'll have full control over not only the website, but also the hosting environment - you can optimize your own server or your heart's content, including scheduling backups at the server level. The advantages are numerous.
Granted, I speak from the prospective of being one of three guys who manages 60-U's of rackspace.
They do offer a "virtual dedicated server" set-up. Would any of these options work for us? I'm a complete n00b in regards to this stuff.
Maybe
Virtual servers mean you're still sharing one box with several other people, but that you get your own dedicated "space" on the box. Different virtualization methods allow for different levels of separation. Virtualization methods like VMware (which we use extensively) and Xen basically create an entirely separate server within a server. Your "area" has its own BIOS, own expansion cards, own drives, own hunk of RAM, etc. which are defined by the guys running the VMware server. You have complete control over the whole system from the ground up, which can be good and bad.
GoDaddy uses Virtuozzo, which is an application layer virtualization technology. I haven’t used anything like this personally; from what I've read it means that each instance of the Apache (or IIS) webserver is controlled by you and you can install other software, while the rest of the server settings are in GoDaddy's hands.
Virtualization performance/reliability all boils down to how the host system's managed and how much of the process you can comfortably handle. For example, if a system's got only one hard drive in it (or single RAID array) with a whole mass of virtual servers on it, performance can bog down because of sharing the disk. Or if each CPU is shared by a bunch of virtual servers, same situation.
So the real answer to your question is "maybe", only because I don't have personal experience with GoDaddy's virtual servers; I'd see if anybody else you know (or can get in contact with) has used them or if you can call them up and get a service level agreement with garunteed hardware specs (for the virtual server) and network map. That would help you weigh their performance vs. cost of either finding a good webhost which can handle your load, using somebody's virtual environment, or building and colocating your own server (~$100+/mo for a good upstream provider).