[support] CPU usage

[Jamie Holly]

Daniel Carrera wrote:
>
> Three questions:
>
> 1. What's cloud?
>   
A cloud is basically a webserver that will grow as your demand grow. A 
good example of that is Amazon's EC2 service:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
> 2. Does a VPS avoid the problems of a shared host?
>   
Yeah - with a VPS you have more control over the server. You can tune it 
to handle the connections your software/system combination can handle. 
Every platform is basically different. Wordpress would lead to a 
different number of maximum connections than Drupal. It's basically all 
a part of server tuning. For some good articles on server tuning with 
Drupal, check out 2bits:

http://2bits.com/articles/drupal-performance-tuning-and-optimization-for-large-web-sites.html


> 3. Can these option handle the 500 HTTP requests?
>   
There's no way to answer that. You have way too many variables in there 
- CPU, memory, bus speed, drive speed, drive configuration, network 
latency, operating system, what is running on the operating system, 
etc., etc., etc. That's why when sites grow beyond what shared hosting 
can offer they need to move to their own servers where they can actually 
tune it themselves (or have a managed service with a knowledgeable staff 
that can do it for you).
> 4. Can you recommend a service for a *managed* VPS or similar that has 
> very good support for a modest price?
>
> At the current exchange rate, we are spending about $35/month. We can up 
> this a lot, but I think $400/month is out of our range right now.
>   
Not really. I pretty much recommend people go with a bigger service like 
RackSpace, which has a very solid reputation, but also comes with a 
steep price tag (of course the old saying "you get what you pay for" 
comes into play here). One suggestion would be to go with an unmanaged 
host and look at bringing in another company to handle your tuning of 
the site and whatever management you might need (companies such as 
Acquia or 2bits). That might be a more cost effective route overall.

Jamie Holly