What is the real story?

[LBSources]

I posted this on ASO..

Hello All

I have signed up today under the $5 package to test ASO server abilities and they seem great, but i cant get the testing results i need unless i move my site here; im not ready to do this. I would like opinions from some of you ASO'ers who might be already doing the same thing im looking to do here on ASO.

I run a vbulletin site right now with close to 200 members.. currently im having about 50-60 visits a day. site is doing great and it seems the site will continue to grow. When we started the site we signed up with BlueHost and it hasnt been great thus far. they have improved in a few things, but because their sooo cheap their cpu limitations are what they consider conservative. So conservative that running a hack like VBShout will cause members to receive a big red page stating CPU USAGE EXCEEDED. they have to then wait until this so call usage exceeding ends and they can surf and shout again.

sometimes it can be 5-8 people in the shoutbox at once and the host says that the vbshout is eating all of the resources. im currently running the latest version and im sure there are thousands of members running this hack and far more elsewhere. SO the question is.. what hosting co or package is sufficient to handle such a job?

The job seems to me to be a normal website operating with some modified; NOT BROKEN additional scripts.

I have asked ASO support the same question and received this answer: Generally a shared hosting account start having issues with affecting other users around the 50 users online at once mark. If you are only seeing that many per day I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work just fine for you. Once it gets to 40-50 users online in a 15 or 30 minute span (I can't remember which offhand, I'll have to check on that) then a shared account just isn't powerful enough and you'd have to look into a VPS option.

This is suggesting that ASO is not the place for me.. am i correct or must i be forced to get a VSP account no matter where i go? it just doesnt make sense.. im sure thousands of people arent purchasing VSP packages.. so what is everyone doing?

Will ASO give me these screens? freeze my account fo simple php processes to SHOUT in a chat box? doesnt make sense..

Thanks for any help you can help me with..

Lenny

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More of this convo can be found here: http://forums.asmallorange.com/index...50&#entry37150

I come here to vbulletin.com and see this..

If they are using underpowered servers and you are constantly running into issues, it's time to look elsewhere. Having only 20-30 users online at once shouldn't be a problem for a shared hosting solution, at least not in my experience.

See this is odd.. i was posting on the ASO boards and here is what seems to be 'the rule of thumb' everywhere.. BlueHosts hardware or servers dont seem to be the problem.. but according to what the ASO board users are saying, its the type of plan for the job.. shared plan cant do it.. i find it hard to believe..

Normal poster wrote

The general rule of thumb is once you get to a constant 50 or so users online within a 15 minute period then you are using too many resources for a shared web host, which would impact unfairly on other users. However unless those 50 - 60 visits a day you quote all happen within a 15 minute period then you should be fine.

ASO staff wrote

We will never freeze your account automatically because of resource usage. You say 50-60 visits per DAY, we are talking about 50 people on at the same time. Anything over that and we will work with you to set up a VPS account.

So which is it? im a bit confused and i want to do this the _RIGHT_ way .. pay VPS or are these hosting companies taking me for a ride?

Thanks in advance..

Lenny

[LBSources]

Ok.. so i call BlueHost now and really talking to a tech and getting info from the TIER II ..

He says that i need a host with mod_php and not php only. they say that hacks like VBShout are not able to operate without using so many resources. So for this reason i need a host that is running PLESK ..

Its not seeming to get any better..

[KingSpade]

I've honestly never ran into any issues with our customers. We have a few that are running 50-100 users online at once within their communties and we've never had unknown spikes or a cause for concern.

Keep in mind, there is quite a bit of difference between 50-60 *visits* per day and 50-60 *users online*. The primary difference being that visitors come and go, users logged on an active to your community stick around and are constantly moving around from page to page, post to post etc.

I will state again, having 30-50 users online in a shared hosting environment should not be a major issue. As above, we have 2-3 customers throwing 50-100 users online and things are running just fine.

I cannot give me experience with the chat program you are using as I've never used it, though it's setup is what would need to be taken into consideration.

If the program simple calls to an external IRC client or connects elsewhere, I honestly cannot see where the load would be from the script. However, if the script resides only on the server and the chat room is based off the server, I can see where load may be an issue depending on how many people are logged into the chat room at once.

If you have any questions, my PM box is always open, feel free to shoot me a PM.

[LBSources]

King,

Thanks for the response .. the Plugin actually does not use IRC or anything else like that .. on BlueHost it seems to start a PHP process per SHOUT (type text and ENTER button). On ASO, it seems to be a normal httpd process, which suggests _why_ the cpu usage exceeding error comes up on BlueHost oppossed to why on ASO it wont be an issue. ASO seem to be running MOD_PHP which is why the seperate php process per SHOUT is not started..

Ive tested on ASO and BlueHost in ssh (TOP) and BlueHost load goes up and a php process is started per SHOUT. ASO, seems nothing is affected ..

So there seems to be some truth to some of this..

Here is the hack: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showt...7&page=1&pp=15

I will continue to test on..

Thanks King!

Ill keep you posted ..

Lenny

[Zachery]

Sounds like they are running php as a cgi process, which allows tracking, but is much more server intensive.

ASO is in the business of catering to sites with active communities

[LBSources]

zachery,

Thanks for the additional info.. i will be giving ASO the test and seeing how they do with us.. it sthe only way ..

Thanks!

Lenny

[LBSources]

Justh thought id give a shout and say ive found home.. my sig says it all .. thank you to everyone..

[tonylab]

Sounds like they are running php as a cgi process, which allows tracking, but is much more server intensive.

Thats exactly what they are doing

[VBUser12]

zachery,

Thanks for the additional info.. i will be giving ASO the test and seeing how they do with us.. it sthe only way ..

Thanks!

Lenny

I've been using ASO for a few years now for VB forum hosting and while they were "ok" for a while, there have been consistent (like once every few days or even more often) slowdowns when trying to make larger posts... either longer text posts and/or those with attachments.

It has become intolerable and we are looking for a new host! We have 36 members, but our mysql database is about 250 MB after 3 years or so of use.

Maybe we need better support for our large database or something... in any case I think we're moving to a new host.

I don't know if that info helps you...