Traffic-Intensive Web Site Hosting

What is the right solution?

[iloveu]

We have a database-driven ecommerce website composed by classic ASP. The site grows fast and we have more and more traffic. Unfortunately, the site was disabled last night by GoDaddy and we have huge loss today. GoDaddy states our site made too much overload on their shared server and occupied most of the server RAM. They suggested us to upgrade to dedicated server. The problem is we have to install MS SQL database and administrated the database by ourselves, which we don't think we have the ability to deal with. So we chose the shared hosting service since the start just because they provide 3 SQL databases. We already used the premium servcie of shared hosting at GoDaddy. Seems we have no way to go further except to the dedicated server. Is anybody knowing other good hosting servers which provide high bandwidth especially ample database connections for traffic-intensive website? GoDaddy only allows 150 simultaneous database connections, which is far below our requirement. Or if we have no way other than dedicated server, is it better for us to host our own server in our office?

[caribguy]

We've been using a colocated box that is managed by a boutique outfit. They manage the OS and various software for us, has been working like a charm for 4 years now.

[rocknbil]

Seems we have no way to go further except to the dedicated server.

If you're getting that much traffic and revenue, you should. You'll love it. But if not, have you looked at a VPS? Much less expensive.

You should be able to do a mySQL data dump no problem, the real heavyweight will be your images.

[pbradish]

If you're site keeps growing, and you can afford it, I'd highly suggest a dedicated server. It makes life so much easier.

[Swanny007]

I have a large site hosted on a VPS. It's not quite a true dedicated server but it costs less plus I don't worry about security patches, etc.

[The Contractor]

First mistake is to compare GoDaddy or any other budget hosting company to a good shared hosting company. There are plenty of high quality shared hosting companies out there using clustered servers that budget hosts cannot compete with. I have had clients on budget/good VPS plans and budget/good dedicated servers whose sites ran faster with less problems on a good clustered (seperate database, control panel, email, and HTTP servers) shared account.

[iloveu]

Thanks for all above inputs. We actually have been eager to upgrade to the dedicated server for long time but always hesitated to do that.

We know programming and web site construction very well, but no knowledge about SQL database installation and server configuration.

[edited by: lorax at 2:24 pm (utc) on Dec. 18, 2008]

[The Contractor]

You can't drop company names in these public forums per TOS.

[iloveu]

Thank you very much, The Contractor. I will check around by your suggestion.