Performance Question

[Jerome]

I want to start by expressing my satisfaction and thanks to FQ. I can truly appreciate having a reliable host, as I'm sure many others can. I finally got smart, did some research, and found FQ through some positive posts at webhostingtalk.com. I've been here about a year now, and I'm still happy. I won't give the details about the many ways I've been impressed with FQ here. I have a question that I could have emailed support about, but thought it better to give credit where credit was due, and try my first post to this forum.

I have a couple of sites here. The primary one is becomeatypist.com. I often use meta-refresh to give users a live feel over this stateless Net, for example, automatically moving them through typing practices. I have an idea for another possible site which would build on this technique. As it grew popular this could spike to hundreds of page requests per second. :o I'm wondering whether my current set-up using shared hosting can handle this. Server errors would break the chain of interaction and condemn the site. I might need a dedicated solution. I thought I ran across something once about FQ offering this eventually. ;)

As I said, I'm very grateful to have finally found a competent host. My past hosting experiences didn't leave me a page up to even evaluate. I can count on one hand the times I couldn't get my page here, and those were probaly on my end of the network. Thanks in advance for your input.

Thanks again FutureQuest!

[Jerome]

This is a follow-up to my first post. I grew impatient of waiting for feedback to help answer my question, so I emailed customer support directly. I was told I would get a reply in 24 hours.

In less than one hour I got an answer and recommendation that was specific, clear and very helpful from Terra. Yes, I've been impressed yet again by FutureQuest.

Thanks!

[mromero]

Why don't you post the solution for our benefit?

[Jerome]

Here it is:

FutureQuest Response:
Hello Jerome,

A Shared Community server is not designed to handle that high of a transaction rate originating from one site... A highly tuned Apache on a Dedicated Server can handle about 600 requests per second and only if it is static content... Once you start using dynamic content (PHP/CGI/etc) that rate plummets dramatically due to processing overhead...

The other issue you will run into is how many concurrent clients it can handle at one time... Apache defaults to 256 concurrent connections, and in your case a specially built Apache will be required to exceed that built in restriction...

In short, if that site were on our Community Servers, we would notice really *quick*...

Your best option is to look at our Managed QuestServers (MQS), which is a dedicated server built around the Community Server core but is designed to handle one primary domain plus any type of IRx subdomain you might add (IRO/IRM/DS-IRO/DS-IRM)... We fully manage the server in the same respect of how we manage the Community Servers... The MQS systems are expensive, however you have peace of mind since they are built and managed by the FutureQuest Team instead of having the headaches of administering your own dedicated server... In the end, it would all depend on how mission critical this site is to your operations...

http://www.FutureQuest.net/Services/HC/MQS/

Please let us know if you have any further concerns or questions...

--
Terra

[mromero]

O.K. I would have thought as much. Terra has thoroughly explained it and why it it is not good for the server.

From another perspective however, Meta Refresh is usually avoided by White Hat SEOs as Search Engines do not like it and your site can be penalised for it.

Regards

[Jerome]

Thanks for the tip, but it shouldn't affect my sites since I usually refresh pages only for members that are logged in, not bots. :D