Published on 2006-04-08 13:41:39
So what's the difference between the second and the third case ? Let's consider an example of a webmail application a first one written in PHP and the second using PHP+AJAX. Before to check for email user hit a link or a check new emails button, using AJAX the webmail could not only check for new emails every period of time automaticly but could also load in background some informations about the coming emails. This fluidity in the application make the server works more, more requests, more queries (if a database is used), and certainly the server which will host this application should be able to support this difference.
If we consider that an application should support at least 100 users requesting data from server in the same time, before the process to evaluate the adequate package is very easy for hosting providers especially with an experience of many years working in this field, anyone can give you an average offer which could fit with your needs just by knowing the kind of application or software you going to use and the average traffic you want it to support, or even without details at all.
But if you don't know exactly what's this new application is about and what will be the requirements for its hosting you'll find yourself in two cases :
1- The server is not enough, the website goes off at first high load, and you'll have to add more ressources since the first day. And this is what usually happen with Google for example, but hopefully they stop accepting new users until they upgrade their hardware.
2- The server is more than enough and you'll have to pay much more than your real needs. And this is bad for business, it's a lost money since there is no need to pay more when you know your real needs.
That's why it will be interesting to know the average requirements, first to avoid being under the limits and secondly to optimize our hosting package depending on the real needs of the application.
If I have for example a customer using about 10000 pop accounts and looking to offer a webmail for all their users, I have an idea about the architecture for the mail sever and the requirements, but what about the webmail ? I have choose webmail as example but it could be anything else. Which approach should I choose and how dimension my hardware to fit with my real needs.
Back to the study that we are making, we have asked many hosting providers about a minimal configuration and a recommanded one to host an AJAX application without really giving details about the application itself. Why without details, because at first place we want the information be based on experience of these companies which all of them work on dedicated hosting.
The minimal configuration is for example a startup looking to create a new project which could attract lot of users, investors and so on. This information is excellent to know from where to start, under this minimum you could face technical issues and your project may fail so its better know this information. Certainly none will go to shared hosting or virtual servers here, because they are all limited in resources and not designed to host such applications.
The recommanded configuration is what could support most of the applications without any problems. And of course we are talking about average projects and the most common ones, if we move to very high trafic it will be another story.
So if you have any questions or idea to share about hosting let us know.
Hosting providers who didn't participate yet, can drop me a message to reveive an invitation for this survey.
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