Dedicated Servers + Scalable Web Architectures

[R.T.]

Given:
- "I am looking into building a new "Web 2.0" web site"
- "I lack experience in the large-scale/high-performance realm."
- "I expect(hope?) the site to get really popular, really quickly, and
so I need to be prepared to handle lots of hits and quick data
retrieval."

You should:
- Sign-up with http://aws.amazon.com/
- Spend your time to doing what matters to you ("building a new 'Web
2.0' web site", not "tweaking Apache")

Also:
If you self-admittedly "lack experience in the
large-scale/high-performance realm", I'd avoid flamebait like "Ruby on
Rails doesn't scale--".



On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Marc Lanctot <lanctot-yfeSBMgouQgsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> First I will introduce myself. I'm a grad CS student who'll soon be living
> in Toronto. I'm 28 years old and have been back and forth from academia to
> the industry. I've been involved with Linux for some time now, mostly system
> admin experience -- no kernel hacking or anything like that....... yet? I'm
> very happy to see that there is what looks to be an active Linux User
> community in Toronto and I'm looking forward to meeting some of you soon.
>
> I am looking into building a new "Web 2.0" web site which focuses on
> user-contributed content. I have lots of ideas and after thinking about this
> and discussing it for about a month, I think I can "do it properly" when it
> comes to the actual building of the site.. eg. I have a wealth of experience
> with Apache, MySQL, PHP etc. but I lack experience in the
> large-scale/high-performance realm. I expect(hope?) the site to get really
> popular, really quickly, and so I need to be prepared to handle lots of hits
> and quick data retrieval.
>
> That being said, I have real questions:
>
> 1. I'd like a *reliable* dedicated server to host the site. I'd prefer one
> hosted in Toronto or Montreal for low trip response times, but that's not
> crucial. I tried tophostingcenter but their service was really bad (I can
> elaborate on that). I've now (temporarily) gone back with ServerPronto
> because I had used it before.. it was affordable, very reliable, and their
> customer service was just awesome. However, if I can do as well with a local
> server I'd surely consider it.
>
> 2. I'd like a recommendation on an architecture or *good* book on this
> subject, or even better pointer to scientific studies which compare
> different architectures in practical experiments. I'm very familiar with the
> Apache/MySQL/PHP setup so that is my current preference -- as long as it can
> scale! I'd be happy using Tomcat/JSP/Servlets if it means it means better
> scalability in the end. People have told me that Ruby on Rails doesn't
> scale-- after playing with it a bit two years ago it doesn't seem hard to
> believe, but it was still more of a superficial investigation than anything
> else.
>
> Ultimately, I'd like if people can give me recommendations based on their
> experiences rather than suspicions, but I think any discussion that come of
> this might be generally useful to us all.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> Marc
>
> --
> There is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be, any
> programming language in which it is the least bit difficult to write
> bad code.
>  -- Flon's Law
> --
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