Hosting

Any suggestions on hosting accounts? What should you look for in terms of hosting?

1. Is it better to have a dedicated server?
2. Is a dedicated IP a good idea?
3. How much storage and bandwidth should you get?

Thanks for the help!

Tami

  • Tami, it all depends on the size of your community and how much activity is performed. Of course, dedicated server is always the best option if you are willing to make the investment. A dedicated IP wont affect the performance of your site but it can come in handy in cases where you integrate e-commerce and applications that require security certificates and so on. The question about storage and bandwidth is again dependent on the size of your community.. the elgg script itself does not take much space, but if you have a big community then you might need large storage space to cater for your data folder (where photos and videos are stored).

    One last tip, if you decide to go for a dedicated server, start with a shared hosting account, do your website and finish it, then take up a dedicated server and migrate the site to it. That way you save on the hosting fees until your site is complete.

    -Carlos

  • I agree with Carlos, a dedicated server it's the best choise, i contract a shared hosting on dreamhost, but it breaks when the comunity activity grows up...

  • Carlos/MZStudios,

    Thanks for the response. But I have a question.

    Carlos you said "One last tip, if you decide to go for a dedicated server, start with a shared hosting account, do your website and finish it, then take up a dedicated server and migrate the site to it."

    Do you mean when the site is complete meaning "ready for action" or complete as in getting enough traffic? So I should start with a dedicated server or wait until the community gets bigger?

    Thanks,
    Tami

     

  • It's probably best to use the shared hosting account to get the design right and do a small amount of testing (with some friends) and then when everything is looking fine do do a fresh install on a dedicated server and transfer your theme across as you may not have the skills to start transferring dattabases etc across.

    Whatever happens remember to enjoy yourself!

  • I agree.. As jededitor said, get the design and testing done and then consider getting the dedicated server. Having said that, there is no harm in staying with the shared hosting until your traffic is big enough. I guess this is something you have to weigh, but remember, the bigger the database, the longer it will take to migrate the site, that's why many social network operators opt for a dedicated server at the time of launch so that the migration of the site is not too complex. Another factor to consider is if problems happen during moving the site which may cause your users some inconvience, but if you didn't have any users at the time of moving the site, you would just simply fix the problems and launch.

    Now, with regards to moving the database, my advice for anyone who is not familiar with that process is to get the new host provider do that for you. When you take up the dedicated hosting, just ask the hosting company to move the site for you and 99% of the time they would be happy to do it.

    -Carlos

  • moving the db is easy 2 clicks and 3 changes in the db tables to point to the correct folders and domain name just empty the log first it makes it quicker "phpmyadmin"

  • @Malaga Jack

    That gets my vote as the understatement of the week :-)

  • Click one ***** export db from old server    (phpadmin old server)

    Click two ****  import db to new server (phpadmin on new server)

    step 3 edit line 6 and seven in the new db in table datalist to give the new paths to your site and data folder

    step 4 edit the  site entity  table to point to your elgg install

    done your db is now moved and reinstalled. that's it for the db

    However there is more to moving the site

    e.g. moving the data folder

    uploading a new copy of elgg

    editing the /engine/setiings.php and

    .htaccess

    The things that will slow the process down are  your data folder, if you have a lot of content this takes time to move

    And you may have to click import a few times on phpadmin if the database is large as it will time out but you can restart it and it will pickup from where it left off

    The process is rather easy and painless as I said it's moving the data folder that takes time

    I did it on a live site in 30 minutes with 6000 members a

  • All I can add is what I do.  I got myself an account with domain name on a hosting service, $100 a year, very high bandwidth, no storage limitations at all.  Then I installed a whole bunch of stuff using the Fantastico installer that came with their cPanal, plus many other things, like Elgg, which it didn't have.  Now I just use what works easily and well.  Wordpress and MediaWiki are great.  I have had little luck with the famous Drupal and Joomla, but I see their possibilities.  I see great potential in Elgg and hope I can make something with it, but it is an uphill battle.   By the way, I have bought all the "... for Dummies" books, one for each piece of software I have on my server, and the out-of-date Elgg book, which helped almost as much as it misled.  Despite decades using and writing software I still find this all incredibly hard.   All this is Social Technology, by the way, and I fume and fuss over it on my site, http://www.SocialTechnology.ca/ which laments the failures of all this stuff, while exposing my daydreams of something better. 

               dpw