Overselling website hosting:-Disadvantages

August 13th, 2008

Hello,

As every web hosting package has some disadvantages oversold web hosting also has some disadvantages.As for some it might appear that oversold website hosting has only advantages but for many it is proved to be a disadvantage as compared to other forms of web hosting.One of the reasons is that people consider is the fact that it is important for any webhosting account that it has unlimited resources,since unlimited server resources don’t even exist.So if you are hosting your website by an oversold web hosting account you should switch to a standard shared hosting account so that you get better value for money as you cannot deny the fact that standard shared hosting provides you with better support and reliability than oversold web hosting.One of the main or you can even say that the worst disanvantage of oversold web hosting is the reliability.Oversold web hosting are not reliable because there are many users having an account and using the same server and that is the reason why the servers get overloaded and results in a crash which is regular when it comes to servers of oversold web hosting.So due to these reasons if you are running a critical or in other words a very important website than it is recommended that you choose or stick to standard web hosting.

Overselling website hosting:-Advantages

August 13th, 2008

Hello,

It is very necessary that you choose the right kind of hosting type so that it is cost effective and is beneficial to you and your website.If your website has a good traffic and is busy and the standard shared hosting package is not enough for you and your website and it is not possible for you to afford the other two types of hosting that is the vps and the dedicated hosting,Then oversold hosting is the best hosting type for you.This is the best alternative available and it fits your needs.for example,if you have a photography website that contains many images then the oversold website hosting might be the best type of website hosting option available for you.The configuration of the oversold hosting package is the more than enough for you.for example,the amount of the diskspace and the bandwidth that is provided with the average oversold hosting package is more than enough for your needs and is suitable to you.Also if you require large amount of bandwidth and diskspace so that you can host all the images for your website and visitors can visit your website easily thne the oversold web hosting package is for you.If you are using only a small amount of your provided package of oversold web hosting as you are hosting a small website only and you do not require so many resources then it is recommended that you go for a standard shared hosting package,as this will suite your web hosting needs and is better than the oversold web hosting package and the best part is that shared hosting package provides you with great reliability as compared to the oversold web hosting.

Load balancing on dedicated server

August 12th, 2008

Hello,

If you have a website on the internet than it is very natural that you have a server to host the site.If you have a good traffic on your website and you have a dedicated server to host your site than it is necessary that your server responds very quickly to all the incoming HTTP requests for your website.If your website is growing and is becoming popular than it will be very difficult for your server to respond quickly to all the HTTP requests made for your website and the site will load very slowly and the users will have to wait for a long time to view the web pages.For this reason you will have to upgrade the configuration of your server or but as upgrading the configuration is very expensive it will no more be cost effective.You will need a cost effective solution to solve this problem.

For this task it is very important to improve the server scalability.As there are many requests made at the same time more servers are needed so that the load gets distributed and the scalability is also increased.This process of increasing the scalability and distributing the load is called clustering and load distribution among the servers which is nothing but load balancing.Load balancing is applied to both database as well as application servers.

Mechanism for load balancing.

The load balancing mechanism used for distributing the HTTP requests among the servers is known as IP Spraying.When there are multiple servers in the group the HTTP requests needs to be evenly distributed.It acts as a single server to one single server to the clients like an internet browser.The equipments used for Ip spraying are “Load dispatcher” and “network dispatcher”.You can call them as “Load balancers”.IP Sprayer is the one which redirects HTTP requests to a server in a server cluster. This all depends on the type of IP sprayer involved so that the architecture can provide more scalability, load balancing and overcome all the fail-over requirements.

You can have a look at one of the load balanced server  so that you get a rough idea of the structure of the load balanced server.clustering-servers Load balancing on dedicated server

Dedicated servers

August 12th, 2008

Hello,

Dedicated servers are the servers which have only one client and the entire server belongs to him.Client is the only account holder on the server and hence all the resources are only used by him.Dedicated server provides a dedicated environment to the client so the client is not sharing the server with any other client or account holder.As the server has no other client all the resources of the server are used by one single user and that is the reason why dedicated servers are preferred over the shared and vps servers.As dedicated servers have only one user they are much more reliable and safe and that is a real benefit for the clients who really want privacy like companies and some individuals also who having high traffic on their websites.

Dedicated servers are also preffered because they include the all the features of shared and vps hosting.Dedicated server for example give you the flexibility like if you think the resources of the dedicated server are not entirely used by you then you can also have people sharing it with you so that you get the amount of the resources you do not use and you only pay for the resources you use.This is one of the advantages of dedicated server.If you have a dedicated server you also have the option to customize your server according to your needs and requirements and so it has become a very good option for the clients who are not satisfied with the dedicated server packages offered by the web hosting companies.The clients can calculate the usage they will require and can get the dedicated servers customized by the web hosting company.As in a dedicated server there are no account holders there is no complaints about the customization of the server.Due to this option of customization dedicated servers are much more preferred over the shared and the vps servers which have a number of users and cannot be customized.Dedicated servers are also preferred because in shared hosting the other websites certainly effects the performance of the sever vps do give us the dedicated environment, but at the same time is still virtual since the vps is sharing a physical node with other vps – the only resource which is only being constantly shared is the vps.

Dedicated servers are a very good option for you but the only thing to worry is that you should be able to afford it.Dedicated servers are much more expensive than the shared and the vps servers.In the shared and the vps servers the entire cost and maintainance of the servers is distributed among all the users using the servers.As dedicated server is used by one single client the entire cost and the maintainance is to be given by the user.So it is very difficult for an indivisual to afford a dedicated server.The hosting company which provides you the server also include the profit in the cost of the server as they are the one providind you the service and a lot depends on them.

Disadvantages of dedicated server

August 12th, 2008

Hello,

Dedicated servers are very well known by all the people who are associated with the internet and specially the web hosting industry.Many of us are aware of the benefits of the dedicated servers but,as there are advantages of something there are some disadvantages too.Dedicated servers actually do not have so called disadvantages as the major one which is the most important one is the cost of the dedicated server.As dedicated server belongs to one client and there is no other account holder,the entire cost of the server is given by the client.In a shared server as there are a number of users or clients using the same server the entire cost of the server is distributed among all of them according to the plans they have chosen for the usage of the server.As the cost gets distributed it is much more reduced and it gets affordable for all the account holders of the server to pay for the server.But as the dedicated server and all the resources of the server are used by one client he has to pay the entire cost of the server.

The cost of the server is also high because the server physically exists.The server originally costs a hundreds of pounds and the fact that the provider who is providing you the server has to make up the entire amount of server in a short period of time and so he has to keep the cost high so that he can do that as soon as possible.The cost of the data center maintainance is quite high as the data centers are provided with a good security,electricity supply and engineers 24×7x365 days.So naturally the cost of all these services is taken from the clients who are using the servers kept in the data center.Not only this,the cost of the bandwidth and the rackspace that has been filled is also taken from the client.

Your web host plays a major role in deciding the cost of your server.The cost of the server is decided by your web host as he also wants to earn profit when he provides you with the server.The relation of the web host and the datacenter is also important as the datacenter provides the server to the web host which provides you the server,as the web host is providing the service the web host is going to charge you the amount as they want to maintain a profit from your server but at the same time the server has to be kept in the datacenter so that it is connected to the internet.

Advantages of dedicated server

August 12th, 2008

Hello,

Dedicated server,as the word suggests is only dedicated or in other words given to and owned by one client or customer.Dedicated server is the server which belongs to only one client and there is no other client,account holder or no one is sharing the server with the owner of the dedicated server.As their is no other account holder for the dedicated server it is said to be the best server type as you are free to use the server according to you.One of the best part of dedicated server is the fact that all the resources of the server entirely belongs to you.You do not have to worry about the other account holders (as there aren’t any) and you can use the server resources according to you.As only you are using the resources,you very well know that how much resources you require for a certain period of time.

The dedicated server will provide you the flexibility too.If suppose you want to share the resources of the dedicated server with someone else than you can do that too.So by this you can select the appropriate plan or package for you from the different plans or packages available with the web hosting company that is providing the web hosting service to you.Here again the best part of the dedicated server is noticed.If you have a dedicated server you can customize your server according to your needs and requirements and as there are no other users sharing the server with you,( as mentioned earlier it depends on you) there is no one to complain or have any issues with your customization on the server.The customization you have on the server is definitely going to help you out to increase your business standard or in other words to give you a reputed name in the industry in which you are working.This is because as you have a dedicated server you can allow your website traffic to flourish.

If you have a company which earns a lot,or say a good amount of money of your entire amount of turnover then,dedicated server is the best for you as dedicated servers are more reliable,safe and give you a guaranteed up time.If you have a a web hosting company then it is very beneficial to you as you can give your clients the reliability and up time that they need and is very essential for your company so that you build a good reputation and respect among the customers for the company.As dedicated server give you all these features or in other words all these benefits,dedicated servers are much better option than any other hosting type as you will not get or will be able to provide these features to your customers and the fact that if you are sharing the server with any other websites or account holders than it is certainly going to effect you.

Name server configuration on a dedicated server

August 10th, 2008

hello,

A domain name server (also called DNS) is an internet service which registers domain names which is very important to start a website.domains are the links or in  other words the addresses of your website.DNS not only registers domain names but also operates and allows you to own the domain names.So it can also be reffered to the internet directory which maintains the domain names and their matching IP address as we have a phone directory.The emails and the domain names are delivered by the domain name system.Accessing the domain name systems means that you can also access websites and emails.It is therefore a very important tool to let all this to happen.Domain name system can be installed from the internet as their are many resources and guidelines to help you out.A central registry has all the gathered information from all the domain name servers across the internet.To get your the information and updates of websites about the domain and where to find domain name or the website of the any indivisual  computer networks check in with the central registry.It will not be possible to locate the website of anyone without the domain name server and the information it provides.It takes approximately 48 hours for the websites new or modified information that is entered into a domain name server so that to find it across the internet.

How is private server different from a virtual server ?

August 10th, 2008

Hello,

A private server,also known as a dedicated server is a server which completely belongs to the client(customer).In a dedicated server a client is free to upgrade or in other words customize the server according to the needs and requirements.In a dedicated server the client can select the cpu,ram and disk space according to his or her needs.Whereas,a virtual server or a virtual private server or a virtual private  server does not completely belong to the client.The word virtual(which means not true) servers does not fully belong to client,in fact the customer is just given a slice or in other words part of the server.The client is not able to customize the server as per the requirements.Moreover,as the client has the only a part of the server it does not depend on the client to select the cpu,ram and the disk space.The client can only choose the suitable package from the different packages available with the company which is providing the hosting service to the customer.As customization is not possible the client can only use the limited resources provided in the package which the client selects from the different packages available.If the resources of the package selected are not enough for the client then he or she can select a package which provides more resources or in other words the better plan available according to the needs of the client.But if the resources are still not enough then the only option is to go for a dedicated server which provides more resources than the virtual server and is suitable for the needs and requirements of the customer.This is the reason why virtual private servers are said to be the perfect fill in between the shared server and a dedicated server.

But,the client should go for a dedicated server only if the resources offered by the virtual private server are not enough for him or her because as the vps server is a kind of shared server where the cost and the maintainance of the server is paid by all the users and so the amount of the cost and the maintainance of the server is distributed among all the users using the server but,as the dedicated server is only used and belongs to one user the full amount of the cost and maintainance of the server is only paid by the user using the dedicated server.So it is not easy to switch from a virtual private server to a dedicated one.But if you can afford a dedicated server and your requirements of the resources offered by the virtual server are not enough for you then it will be a good decision to go for a dedicated server as dedicated server allows you to use all the resources available and as the server has no other user you will not have to worry about any other users account on the server.

The performance of the virtual private server also depends on the other users as they too share the resources of the server.While choosing from a dedicated server and a virtual private server one should know that although resources of the dedicated server and the virtual private server are different But the features of the dedicated server and the virtual private server are more or less the same.Whereas,in a dedicated server the resources are used only by one single user but you can also share the resources with someone.for example:-if you live and own a mansion,you are free to use all the resources like water supply,electricity etc in the mansion and you can even share it with someone if you want to which is the case with dedicated server.Whereas,if you live in an apartment,you have your limited area where you are able to use the resources and in certain limit as other people also share the apartment with you and they also need the resources.So this is the difference between dedicated server and a virtual private server. These are the points one should think of when they are comparing or in other words differentiating between a dedicated server and a virtual private server.

Backup and FTP Configuration on Unmanaged Dedicated Servers

August 7th, 2008

hello,

Data loss due to the hardware failure or any other disasters is very threatning if you have some important files.For these important files it is veery important to have an additional protection.If you are looking for an additional backup for your files which are important for you then FTP backup is the answer for you.This is a practical remote backup destination as FTP (file transfer protocol) allows you to store important files offsite.FTP backup is supported by backup4all.You can easily backup your data to a remote computer or device by using FTP connection.

FTP remote backup can be very beneficial to you if you are any of this;

A Company- A company always has some private data which should be secured and even if your company has a policy of backing up locally as a must,you have to consider a remote backup solution to give your company’s data an additional security option against local hardware failure,theft,fire or the natural disaster’s.

An Outsourcing Company-If you are an outsourcing company and you are outsourcing work to freelancer’s or other companies, you must be knowing that backing up offsite files is very difficult.And if you also have employees working on different locations,then your success depends on their work too,so to help you out to have their work protected you can use FTP backup.

A Hosting Company-As a hosting company,you have to give your customer’s the value of the services they are expecting from you.In this case,you have to offer them a a reliable online backup solution which will not only increase the value of the service but also gain trust and respect for the company.But,for this you have to use a good remote backup software to as the value of the service depends on this.The best would be to give your customers a product which is simple and reliable and for this the best choice would be backup4all.

A Computer Consultant- If you are an individual or a company that provides consulting services then you can install Backup4all on your customer’s computers and set it so that it automatically does the FTP backup. You are sure this way that their important data is backed up. The advantage: there is no need for their manual intervention, not to mention that if you set Backup4all to send email notifications, you will receive information on the status of their backup without visiting directly with them.

A Regular user-If you are a person who travels a lot then an FTP backup is very necessary for you because you can access your remote backed up data on the FTP server from any computer,By simply entering the security details known only by you.FTP backup can be used as a personal remote backup solution, protecting your data against theft, fire or other disasters that could affect your hardware and result in data loss.

Using Backup4all you can easily backup to FTP by selecting your FTP server as a destination. You can define the FTP configuration and using the security details that you have (username/password) your data can be backed up onto the FTP server.

MySQL databases on dedicated servers

August 7th, 2008

hello,

MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database software.MySQL is owned by a single for-profit firm,the swedish company MySQL AB now a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems which holds the copywrite to most of the codebase.If you are looking for a stable database platform for your organisation but you cannot afford the main stream products from microsoft and oracle?then MySQL having an excellent speed and reliability might be the best option for you.Moreover MySQL is easy to use,so if you are a new user then also using MySQL is not a difficult task for you.Vikram Vasvani’s book MySQL:the complete reference is,as the name suggest’s a complete reference bok for MySQL and can be very useful to the new users for MySQL.The wonderful technical reference in the book is comprehensive enough to help you out if you are a new or a seasoned user for MySQL.

MySQL is popular for web applications and also acts as the database component of the LAMP,BAMP,MAMP and WAMP platforms (Linux/BSD/Mac/Windows,Apache,MySQL,PHP/Perl/Python) and does not require complex scripting or programming.

Setup:-

HOWTO set up a MySQL Cluster for two servers (three servers required for true redundancy)

Introduction

This HOWTO was designed for a classic setup of two servers behind a loadbalancer. The aim is to have true redundancy – the site will still remain up even if either server is unplugged which can be done.

Notes:

You MUST have a third server as a management node but this can be shut down after the cluster starts. Also note that shutting down the management server is not recommended (see the extra notes at the bottom of this document for more information). You can not run a MySQL Cluster with just two servers And have true redundancy.

Although it is possible to set the cluster up on two physical servers you WILL NOT GET the ability to “kill” one server and for the cluster to continue as normal. For this you need a third server running the managment node.

I am going to talk about three servers:

mysql1.domain.com 		192.168.0.1
mysql2.domain.com 		192.168.0.2
mysql3.domain.com 		192.168.0.3

Servers 1 and 2 will be the two that end up “clustered”. This would be perfect for two servers behind a loadbalancer or using round robin DNS and is a good replacement for replication. Server 3 needs to have only minor changes made to it and does NOT require a MySQL install. It can be a low-end machine and can be carrying out other tasks.

STAGE 1: Install MySQL on the first two servers:

Complete the following steps on both mysql1 and mysql2:

cd /usr/local/

http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-4.1/mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz/

	from/http://www.signal42.com/mirrors/mysql/
groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql
tar -zxvf mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz
rm mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz
ln -s mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686 mysql
cd mysql
scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
chown -R root  .
chown -R mysql data
chgrp -R mysql .
cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/rc.d/init.d/
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql.server
chkconfig --add mysql.server

Do not start mysql yet.

STAGE 2: Install and configure the managment server

You need the following files from the bin/ of the mysql directory: ndb_mgm and ndb_mgmd. Download the whole mysql-max tarball and extract them from the bin/ directory.

mkdir /usr/src/mysql-mgm
cd /usr/src/mysql-mgm

http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-4.1/mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz/

	from/http://www.signal42.com/mirrors/mysql/
tar -zxvf mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz
rm mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz
cd mysql-max-4.1.9-pc-linux-gnu-i686
mv bin/ndb_mgm .
mv bin/ndb_mgmd .
chmod +x ndb_mg*
mv ndb_mg* /usr/bin/
cd
rm -rf /usr/src/mysql-mgm

You now need to set up the config file for this managment:

mkdir /var/lib/mysql-cluster
cd /var/lib/mysql-cluster
vi [or emacs or any other editor] config.ini

Now, insert the following (changing the bits as indicated):

[NDBD DEFAULT]
NoOfReplicas=2
[MYSQLD DEFAULT]
[NDB_MGMD DEFAULT]
[TCP DEFAULT]
# Managment Server
[NDB_MGMD]
HostName=192.168.0.3		# the IP of THIS SERVER
# Storage Engines
[NDBD]
HostName=192.168.0.1		# the IP of the FIRST SERVER
DataDir= /var/lib/mysql-cluster
[NDBD]
HostName=192.168.0.2		# the IP of the SECOND SERVER
DataDir=/var/lib/mysql-cluster
# 2 MySQL Clients
# I personally leave this blank to allow rapid changes of the mysql clients;
# you can enter the hostnames of the above two servers here. I suggest you dont.
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]

Now, start the managment server:

ndb_mgmd

This is the MySQL management server, not maganment console. You should therefore not expect any output (we will start the console later).

STAGE 3: Configure the storage/SQL servers and start mysql

On each of the two storage/SQL servers (192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2) enter the following (changing the bits as appropriate):

vi /etc/my.cnf

Enter i to go to insert mode again and insert this on both servers (changing the IP address to the IP of the managment server that you set up in stage 2):

[mysqld]
ndbcluster
ndb-connectstring=192.168.0.3	# the IP of the MANAGMENT (THIRD) SERVER
[mysql_cluster]
ndb-connectstring=192.168.0.3	# the IP of the MANAGMENT (THIRD) SERVER

Now, we make the data directory and start the storage engine:

mkdir /var/lib/mysql-cluster
cd /var/lib/mysql-cluster
/usr/local/mysql/bin/ndbd --initial
/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql.server start

If you have done one server now go back to the start of stage 3 and repeat exactly the same procedure on the second server.

Note: you should ONLY use --initial if you are either starting from scratch or have changed the config.ini file on the managment.

STAGE 4: Check its working

You can now return to the managment server (mysql3) and enter the managment console:

/usr/local/mysql/bin/ndb_mgm

Enter the command SHOW to see what is going on. A sample output looks like this:

[root@mysql3 mysql-cluster]# /usr/local/mysql/bin/ndb_mgm
-- NDB Cluster -- Management Client --
ndb_mgm> show
Connected to Management Server at: localhost:1186
Cluster Configuration
---------------------
[ndbd(NDB)]     2 node(s)
id=2    @192.168.0.1  (Version: 4.1.9, Nodegroup: 0, Master)
id=3    @192.168.0.2  (Version: 4.1.9, Nodegroup: 0)

[ndb_mgmd(MGM)] 1 node(s)
id=1    @192.168.0.3  (Version: 4.1.9)

[mysqld(API)]   2 node(s)
id=4   (Version: 4.1.9)
id=5   (Version: 4.1.9)

ndb_mgm>

If you see

not connected, accepting connect from 192.168.0.[1/2/3]

in the first or last two lines they you have a problem. Please email me with as much detail as you can give and I can try to find out where you have gone wrong and change this HOWTO to fix it.

If you are OK to here it is time to test mysql. On either server mysql1 or mysql2 enter the following commands: Note that we have no root password yet.

mysql
use test;
CREATE TABLE ctest (i INT) ENGINE=NDBCLUSTER;
INSERT INTO ctest () VALUES (1);
SELECT * FROM ctest;

You should see 1 row returned (with the value 1).

If this works,which will probably happen, go to the other server and run the same SELECT and see what you get. Insert from that host and go back to host 1 and see if it works. If it works then congratulations.

The final test is to kill one server to see what happens. If you have physical access to the machine simply unplug its network cable and see if the other server keeps on going fine (try the SELECT query). If you dont have physical access do the following:

ps aux | grep ndbd

You get an output like this:

root      5578  0.0  0.3  6220 1964 ?        S    03:14   0:00 ndbd
root      5579  0.0 20.4 492072 102828 ?     R    03:14   0:04 ndbd
root     23532  0.0  0.1  3680  684 pts/1    S    07:59   0:00 grep ndbd

In this case ignore the command “grep ndbd” (the last line) but kill the first two processes by issuing the command kill -9 pid pid:

kill -9 5578 5579

Then try the select on the other server. While you are at it run a SHOW command on the managment node to see that the server has died. To restart it, just issue

ndbd

Note: no --inital!

Further notes about setup

I strongly recommend that you read all of this (and bookmark this page). It will almost certainly save you a lot of searching.

The Managment Server

I strongly recommend that you do not stop the management server once it has started. This is for several resons:

  • The server hardly requires and takes any server resources
  • If a cluster falls over, you want to be able to just ssh in and type ndbd to stat it. You dont want to have to start messing around with another server
  • If you want to take backups then you need the management server up
  • The cluster log is sent to the management server so to check what is going on in the cluster or has happened since last this is an important tool
  • All commands from the ndb_mgm client is sent to the management server and thus no management commands without management server.
  • The managment server is required in case of cluster reconfiguration (crashed server or network split). In the case that it is not running, “split-brain” scenario will occure. The management server arbitration role is required for this type of setup to provide better fault tollerance.

However you are welcome to stop the server if you prefer.