Thanks Shaggy. I don't know

COSSOFT — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:39:54 +0000

Thanks Shaggy. I don't know why I didn't think of that before! I'm a java man and so came across JMeter which fits the bill perfectly. Thanks again.

Instead of guessing, or

Shaggy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:58:30 +0000

Instead of guessing, or calculating, why not just try to figure out close to actual numbers, by using a benchmarking utility like 'ab' (Apache Bench) or 'siege'.

They're little command line programs you can tell to hit a specific web address (including post/get data, etc) with a specified number of simulated user and transactions. Tweak the user and transaction input until you're happy with the results, and then you know how many users your application can reasonably handle with the facilities you have in you have in place.

Use the utilities on a different connection and machine with plenty of bandwidth available, so you know it isn't the limiting factor.

Also: You may be able to squeeze a bit more down the line if you've plenty of hardware - by setting up your application server to negotiate http-gzip, compressing content before sending it to the client. Tomcat example setup here: http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1221613&page=1

Cheers!
Shaggy

Greg, are you saying that I

COSSOFT — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:02:35 +0000

Greg, are you saying that I can install java on all economy hosting packages for £5ish /month?

Also, when you said 50 - 60 hits at once, did you mean hits or page views?

Well, I'm not sure exactly

greg — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:52:18 +0000

Well, I'm not sure exactly why you require Tomcat specifically.
Perhaps you do, but if all you want is to run Java on your website, you do NOT need a Tomcat server.

Any basic server that runs on Apache (etc) will be fine.

I thought that most hosting

COSSOFT — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:27:22 +0000

I thought that most hosting is shared with limited access to the server OS and no java. Is this not the case..?

Is there some particular

greg — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:45:57 +0000

Is there some particular reason why hosting with those specifics on is dearer?

Thanks greg. I didn't want

COSSOFT — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:33:12 +0000

Thanks greg.

I didn't want to get into architectural details really, just the bandwidth question.

Now that you've (kinda) asked, I need a dedicated linux server with full root access and the ability to run private instances of java /Tomcat /MySQL. I've not seen anything for less than about £40 - £50 unfortunately

Thanks pr0gr4mm3r. 10 - 20

COSSOFT — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:41:06 +0000

Thanks pr0gr4mm3r.

10 - 20 concurrent visitors is more than I expected to be honest. I'm pleasantly surprised. I wonder if anyone else has a view..?

I'd don't want to subvert this thread but as for the pro hosting, looking around the UK for kit that I'd be happy with will cost in the region of $70 /month. I already have kit that I develop & test on. Perhaps when the business becomes really successful

Well, quick and rough

greg — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:38:00 +0000

Well, quick and rough calculations state with your images being around 200kb, other stuff, text etc, it would likely take one visitor around 5 seconds for the first page hit, then perhaps 4 secs after that.

If you had 10 visitors all at one time, which isn't a lot for a popular website, then it would work ok, and not particularly slow but not particularly speedy either.
And for future proofing, if you ever add something to the site that requires a bit more power, you might run into trouble.
You will also run into trouble of course if the site gets 50-60 hits at one time. It will just bottleneck and grind to a halt and people wont come back.
50-60 hits (and more) can happen easily if you put out an ad campaign, or even if it gets popular.

Also, I would read carefully your ISP TOS, as they can be funny about hosting your own site/server through their lines.
It looks like you are with Demon Internet, and if so they will rent their ADSL from BT, so you should also have to look at BT's TOS for that as well, although Demon's should cover it, it's worth checking rather than getting your internet cut off.

An option, if it's in your office's area, is Virgin Media have 50MB broadband which has an upload speed of 1.5MB (that's mega BYTES, not bits, so its NOT 150kb/s, it's 1,500kb/s)
It's also fibre optic so it's a little better than the ADSL and is usually closer to the max speeds than ADSL claim.

All that said, it can be very involving and time consuming to run it yourself. It takes a bit of setting up, but also will have to be managed. It might run smoothly 90% of the time, but it will require some management even if running ok, monitoring it to make sure things aren't getting bottlenecked, and perhaps spending time tweaking caching options based on the results of the changes you make.

I'm not wanting to put you off, if it's "your kind of thing" then it can be interesting and a good learning curve, but if all you simply want is to save money then it's probably not worth doing. For a server for what you need, you would be looking at around £5 per month, that's about 17 pence a day.

The cost of £5 a month might be worth while compared to the time you will likely spend with doing it yourself, especially if it's only money saving you are thinking of.

EDIT: As you said $70 a month I thought I would give you at least one link

Link to 1&1 Packages

Web Space 1.5GB
Monthly Traffic included 20GB
Connectivety 40GBit
£4.99 per month (I think plus vat)

I'm not particularly suggesting using 1&1, it's just a price example. Their admin area takes a little getting used to, but they are fine as hosting goes.

I would say that considering

pr0gr4mm3r — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:11:26 +0000

I would say that considering the visitors will only spend a small portion of their visit loading pages, probably 10-20 visitors can be visited at a time.

I would not recommend hosting it in your office, though, because there are other risks that could lead to downtime, such as power & DSL outages. You can find hosting for only a few $$ a month, and it will be hosted in a professional and high-tech data center.