We are moving to VPS

I hope I can ask all these questions here instead of from someone who is trying to sell me something. If not, I will understand.

We currently have two domains, one for the WP blog and one for the vB. The idea was that we would split them, one on .com, the other on .net and use two shared hostings longer and it seems to have worked.

But, now... no more.

So here are my questions.

These are our stats, combined, as both will be moving to the VPS from two individual shared plans, because both of those shared plans are exploding. I share them all as I have no idea about the relevance of each.
Visits 110K
Visitors 277k
Pages 4.9M
Hits 31M
Bandwidth 207 GB

Here are the specs of the VPS
Memory: 512MB
Disk Space: 20GB
Bandwidth: 1,000GB

They offer, in addition to the VPS, a "managed" plan. What does that mean? I think I want it, because ... I don't know Linux or Shell Access or anything.

I guess in a way, I do not even know what a VPS means except it's "more!"


So, if you were dumb like me, what questions should I be asking?

:shrug:

I know so far that they can easily move our databases and all that stuff and there are some techie things related to that for later, but... help? I am completely panicked.

 

Personally I would recommend a Reseller, alot less work for you and easier to manage. Now i know your not looking to sell you something but I do have those exact specs you are looking at on the VPS for $20 a month which is probably alot less then the VPS.

As a member here (not as the ceo of a company) i say reseller is your best choice simply because they are cheaper, easier to manage and allow you to do the same thing as a reseller.

Hope you find what you are looking and that i helped. Also where is the VPS from, just out of curiosity.

 

207 GB is pretty decent for a forum. Honestly, if you're pushing that much monthly, you may be better off with a cheap ded.

With a cheap ded, you don't have to worry about being shut off in the middle of the night because you're using too many resources (and that can happen on a VPS), or bandwidth, or even going with cheap VPS providers that overpromise and underdeliver.

Were it mine, that's how I'd take it. There's a number of server companies who have cheap deds out there for < $100 who I'd trust and use. Well, there's at least one anyways

 

We are currently with ace-host.net. I don't even know what going with a reseller means.

Dang, I feel dumb.

The reason I would not go to a dedicated server is that it is my understanding that I, as admin, need to know a lot of serverish stuff that I do not know. Like shell access and root thingies and Linux and command lines and things. And that if it goes down in the middle of the night, that's on me? I would not want to have that responsibility without knowing I could handle it.

:o

I need the power and still to have a babysitter. Which it is my understanding that is what I get with a VPS.

No?

And I am so unbelievably satisfied with this host, I could not scream my happiness louder. They will let me step up from their lowest VPS, to the mid, until we would have to move to a ded, which fits best in our budget right now.

 

Peacelilly, this is a great thread for me personally because I don't know any of those 'server-ish' things either and I'm going to be asking these same kinda questions soon.

Good luck with finding the perfect solution and I'll keep my eye on this thread!

 

Managed VPS means that they will look after your server settings, make automatic backups, and take care of most of the "techie" stuff.

That said, if you need to go in and adjust any of the settings for your "server" or PHP, you can do that, but rarely would you need to because a lot of that can be taken care of in .htaccess files.

I don't have anywhere near those stats. Congrats!

 

Personally, I'd steer clear of any sort of shared plan (i.e. a reseller) and go with something that will provide you with greater resources (i.e. a VPS).

I take it that you're currently located in a shared environment. If you upgrade to a reseller (a shared account that will allow you to create multiple accounts with the resources you are delegated), you are going to have to go through this very same "song and dance" again sometime soon in the future, particularly with the statistics originally mentioned above. A shared environment will only take you so far. When you begin receiving e-mails from your provider in regards to the intense resource usage of your account, it's time to make the transition over to a more capable environment. A reseller account, at this point, is not going to assist you, nor your community. Your account will continue to put a tremendous load on the server, and in turn, the other accounts hosted will suffer.

A VPS will provide you with:

• Your own "virtual" environment with dedicated resources.
• Full control over your environment (i.e. the ability to modify the server, install scripts, etc).
• Enhanced performance overall.

A VPS is quite literally a virtual dedicated environment that is hosted within a hardware dedicated server. This hardware machine is divided into various containers, each of which is given its own resources, operating system, and root access. A VPS still can be considered as "shared", but these servers go above and beyond anything that a normal shared account is capable of. If you purchase a virtual server with a 'managed' support plan, this simply means that the support staff will take care of the technical and software aspects for you.

Upgrading to a VPS will also help you gain the experience for when you do end up purchasing a dedicated server.

 

Yes and no. Not all VPS environments are managed, though many are.
As well, there are companies out there that will do this kind of thing for you. Not lease the server, or VPS, but actually do the techie stuff for you on request, and keep the server monitored and up to date, which is your responsibility to do, even on a VPS. Even a "managed vps" won't be kept up to date for you without interaction.

 

In addition to what Tom said, keep in mind that there are specific levels of managed services: semi-managed and fully-managed. Depending on which level you choose to go with (or, depending on which level is offered by default), you may or may not be responsible for taking care of the various upgrades yourself. Each of these responsibilities are generally outlined on their website.

If there are a variety of management plans offered, be sure to read each and every aspect covered (by the technicians) carefully. You are always responsible for your own server regardless - they're just there to ease the load and assist when necessary.

 

My VPS at Knownhost is fully managed.

I pay $45 per month for
RAM: 512 mb
Disk space: 30 gb
Premium bandwidth: 550 gb

 

I just know that the server I am hosted on has many big numbers, so don't feel bad, some of us are server noobs, I need to take lessons from Chris. XD

 

Chris:

You made some good points but not all servers have issues running a load like that, WiredTree has great servers (as you know) and they manage it all with no issues.

Also reseller and vps are basically the same only you dont have to pay for like cPanel, or worry about changing php etc.

Also don't think that I am that one guy trying to get you to buy from me just trying to help you with the best solution from the aspect of somebody looking for hosting.

If you are still looking to go with a VPS check out Hawk Host they have some good plans.

 

I hate VPSes with a passion.

Seriously, for your own sanity, I would highly recommend going with reseller or semi-dedicated until actually making the hop to a real server. You then avoid security and 'mystery hog' issues related to VPS usage.

 

Of course. There are hardware configurations available that are indeed able to handle the load of such accounts efficiently. However, this does not change the fact that a reseller is still considered to be a shared account. As such, it's located on a machine (most likely) that hosts a large number of other accounts in the same category. They could all be located on a hardware machine that is built to handle the largest, most resource-intensive accounts possible. In the end, they're still sharing the resources of a server (or servers, depending on the build and load-balancing configuration).

Also, you have to keep in mind that WiredTree does not provide shared hosting solutions, including reseller accounts. It'd be unfair to compare them to the OP's provider because of this.

I'll agree to disagree with you here. These two hosting solutions are in no way related. Sure; they share some similar properties, such as the ability to resell the resources delegated... but control and server resource wise, they're quite different. You do not receive full root access with a reseller account - reseller-level WHM access, yes, but nothing beyond that. Such would be a security risk. You'd be exposing the inner-core of an entire server to a single shared account! Interestingly enough, it is possible to provide resellers with root-level access via their own WHM-based interface. Rather interesting move on the developers part.

Lastly, virtual private servers are provided with their own unique server-level resources (i.e. CPU power, memory, etc). This is something that reseller accounts are not delegated, and they are forced to utilize the resources being used by possibly hundreds of other accounts.

I just feel that making the transition to a VPS would be a more viable move, particularly thinking ahead.

 

Chris,

This is gonna be my last post on my stand cause i dont want to spam his post i'd prefer to help him.

You say that resellers are not granted root access or delegated resources, This is true for many hosts I spent a few months developing a little toy for me, that allows me to grant resellers root access to their accounts for they only have to have one ftp login (as requested by a client), I also developed a method to delegate memory upon resellers (512MB per reseller, as well as still having the use the main resources) i do not advertise that as it is not as important in my opinion.

Anyways good luck on what you decide, wish you the best of luck.

 

Thank you to everyone, we are going to go with the VPS. I love our host too much to change for anything. Their support is like having a best friend holding your hand and I cannot have our site explode right now, not with the band's album coming out in October. That would be very bad. Heehee

 

Best of luck with the migration. Keep us posted!

 

We just moved last night, and even though all my users can see my site, but it has not propogated for me, we are already at this they say:

(how the heck does everyone else on the planet see it except me? Yes, I have cleared cache, cookies and even tried it in two browsers)

----------- CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle
01:40:08 PM all 62.44 0.00 16.60 2.74 0.01 18.21
01:50:09 PM all 58.96 0.00 15.97 7.92 0.01 17.14
02:00:02 PM all 60.65 0.00 16.72 5.71 0.01 16.90
02:10:02 PM all 59.43 0.00 16.34 4.48 0.01 19.74
02:20:02 PM all 60.52 0.00 16.41 3.97 0.01 19.09
02:30:05 PM all 55.17 0.00 15.25 2.62 0.01 26.96
02:40:07 PM all 59.96 0.00 15.80 6.70 0.01 17.52
02:50:02 PM all 57.14 0.00 16.14 2.32 0.01 24.39
03:00:06 PM all 54.76 0.00 15.37 3.08 0.01 26.78
03:10:13 PM all 64.15 0.00 18.19 3.86 0.01 13.79
03:20:01 PM all 69.78 0.00 18.37 3.12 0.01 8.72
03:30:11 PM all 59.55 0.00 16.53 2.39 0.01 21.53
03:40:02 PM all 53.24 0.00 14.37 2.68 0.01 29.70
Average: all 59.50 0.00 16.13 4.08 0.01 20.28






I am so upset I feel like weeping.

We did not see that kind of server load on the OLD site on two shared hostings. They are saying I already need to upgrade again.

===================================

Is it the RAM the controls the server load?

 

What is server load? There are a LOT of theories about this, and many of them are just theories.

Basically, server load is the amount of "load" (or usage) the applications in the server place on the CPU itself. Killing off applications which take more CPU usage will therefore reduce the cpu load. Then again, if you don't know anything about servers, you shouldn't be meddling in that area.

As far as DNS, if it's been a couple days, contact your ISP, or look at Open DNS which handles DNS much better than most ISP's, for free. Of course, ideally you want your ISP to address the situation, but they probably won't.

Also, make sure you've changed what needs to be changing as far as nameservers. Run your domain through IntoDNS to see if there are errors.

 

Okay. I will write more later, but let me just say... THIS was a colossal waste of time. Go dedicated. Don't waste your time.

God bless Chris Martin.