Anyone who runs a server farm or knows: How many physical servers for how many web users??

[Deleted member 4644]

My site is preparing a business model to expand, and we need a rough estimate about server costs. If we have 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 unique users, how many servers should we expect to need? Or is it best measured in impressions? Anyways, can someone give me ball parks.

Oh.. and not just servers, but T1 lines and over all costs.

Basically if anyone runs a hosting service could you give me a ballpark for a few different possibilities?

Thanks!

 

[keeleysam]

If you are doing something with that many users, T1 lines aren't going to cut it.

Go colocation.

I use FDCservers.net, and reccemnd them.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

You're at LW, right? I would recommend checking out their colocation options, I think for even quantities as low as 1-3 servers you'll like the benefits and freedom with colocation. Contact some datacenters, like LW, for pricing on everything. Look for DC's in your local area and do some tours as well.

 

[hjo3]

Depends on the amount of resources the site uses per user and how often, on average, each user visits your site...

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Yea sorry, I was not too clear in my original post...

Let's say we are talking about 50,000 impressions a day and about 10000 uniques. Just to start with that, can someone give me an idea of the hardware and network needed and the associated costs?

I'm sure there is some formula out there like for every 100,000 impressions per day, 1.5 servers are needed?

 

[DaveSimmons]

www.webhostingtalk.com forums can help.

You'll need to post more specifics though, like whether your site is static pages, script pages (what kind?), or a database-driven content management system.

Is there e-commerce, if so is it for a handfull of products like mugs and t-shirts, or is it a massive product database like newegg. Real-time stock status, or lazy status updates?

What OS, what database engines?

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Hmm.. I dont really know any of that. The site is in my sig, but I am not one of the programming guys.. I guess I should have someone else look into it lol..

 

[RossMAN]

As others have said co-location is the answer:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=44

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Got your PM - will reply in a few

 

[Deleted member 4644]

According to the link Rossman gave:
"We are running site little bit similar to forums. with daily, 110,000 visitors and 500,000 page views.
currently,we have 2 xeon servers 4 GB ram 1 for webserver, and 1 for MySQL server. Things are going fine untill now, except some times load goes to 2.0."

So it sounds like two physical servers can handle anything we expect any time soon. But what sort of line would be coupled to such servers? And in broad terms, how much would it cost? $100 a month or $1000?

I really apologize for not knowing what I'm talking about I am not the one who normally looks at these issues.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: LordSegan
According to the link Rossman gave:
"We are running site little bit similar to forums. with daily, 110,000 visitors and 500,000 page views.
currently,we have 2 xeon servers 4 GB ram 1 for webserver, and 1 for MySQL server. Things are going fine untill now, except some times load goes to 2.0."

So it sounds like two physical servers can handle anything we expect any time soon. But what sort of line would be coupled to such servers? And in broad terms, how much would it cost? $100 a month or $1000?

I really apologize for not knowing what I'm talking about

Register for a WHT account. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

Post your same question above into their dedicated server forum.

Click refresh and wait for the replies.

Profit?

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: LordSegan
According to the link Rossman gave:
"We are running site little bit similar to forums. with daily, 110,000 visitors and 500,000 page views.
currently,we have 2 xeon servers 4 GB ram 1 for webserver, and 1 for MySQL server. Things are going fine untill now, except some times load goes to 2.0."

So it sounds like two physical servers can handle anything we expect any time soon. But what sort of line would be coupled to such servers? And in broad terms, how much would it cost? $100 a month or $1000?

I really apologize for not knowing what I'm talking about

Register for a WHT account. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

Post your same question above into their dedicated server forum.

Click refresh and wait for the replies.

Profit?

RossMan, correct as always.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: LordSegan
edited out numbers at OP's request

The fact that in your case, as far as I know, you don't have any very large media files will make it easier to plan for bandwidth. Do you have any graphs of your inbound/outbound connections?

Use those to judge how many mbps you need and ask the colo provider how they handle all that including what happens if you need more for a short while. They should give you a good idea of how they handle things. It's good you're planning ahead though, you wouldn't want to have to make a move like this all of a sudden at some point.