Hosting, routing and performance conundrum
public
group: High performance
MissyM - Fri, 2008-07-04 17:56
I have a site that will be heavily used in only six or eight states but they are on different sides of the continental US. I found a really fast host on the east coast with super service, etc, but whenever there is heavy network traffic, it is dog slow on the west coast. I imagine the opposite is true. I found this by doing a tracert and seeing that the big delay was in the middle of the country.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on how to select a host for best performance in this case? It is truly a conundrum.
If you have alot of static
If you have alot of static content such as images, JavaScript, CSS etc you could invest in one of a variety of Content Delivery Network providers such as simplecdn or cachefly which will distribute these files according to the users geolocation
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Although that is a great
Although that is a great solution, what would a backup plan to that be? Do you just pick a server in Denver or Houston until the client gets on the program to pay for the CDN? I welcome your thoughts and ideas. Cachefly seems pretty reasonable.
start with normal tuning, then CDN, then...
I'd say start with really basic tuning of the site using YSlow which, if you follow all their advice then the problems from routing will be reduced quite a bit.
Then I'd suggest going for a cdn like cachefly. Frankly, their prices are pretty reasonable. If you show your client "well, I could spend 8 more hours working on this problem with no good solution or you could take that same money and spend it on cachefly" that should be a compelling argument. Something like cachefly is certainly cheaper and better for all users than trying to move hosts...
Once you've exhausted those...well...then it's time to look into something more complex.
--
Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
Good ideas, Greggles.
Good ideas, Greggles. Thanks. I'd like to plug Ace Net Inc. They are incredibly responsive and have really techs that know what they are talking about.