Mouth
Well-known member
Thought I'd share my experience of migrating my hosting/server environment, in case anyone is thinking same or needs inspiring.
Background: Been with the same (great) hosting provider for ~8yrs, upping to higher spec server models twice in that time. My audience is almost wholly Australia based, but server hosting is/was West Coast USA due to cheaper pricing and greater bandwidth allowance (certainly the case 8+ years ago).
Goal: Save money, whilst still maintaining/improving site speed/experience, and better utilise technology/infrastructure for growth and easy/quick storage (attachments) expansion. Running out of storage space being my imperative for reviewing options and change, https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-to-do-with-growing-attachments-total-size.198695/
XF Site: 5.0GB database, 110GB storage, 2.8 million posts, 60k members, ~40k visitors/mth, ~1.8TB transfer/mth, Community forum active for 18 years.
Current Hosting: A single dedicated server; Intel e3 1270v3, 16GB memory, 2 x 480GB SSD storage, 20TB transfer. $115 /mth $USD
Services: NGINX webserver & php7.4-fpm assigned/tuned for max. 4GB memory, MySQL assigned 8GB memory, redis cache, elasticsearch assigned 1GB memory.
( The server was also used to host some other static and wordpress websites, unrelated to primary XF site/community )
My current hosting company offers dedicated servers only; no VPSs, no attachable block storage, no object storage, no firewall/DNS etc. I use external DNS, CDN, and backup targets/services.
After some exploring of options and pricing, and discussing experience with current customers, I chose https://www.linode.com/ for their Australia based data centre ( 11 total, worldwide ), product offering, support, and pricing. Using coupon code marketplace100 during sign-up gave me $100 credit for 60 days, to utilise and performance test their services to ensure it suited. And with the remaining credit balance, I'll effectively get the first month free![Beaming face with smiling eyes :grin: 😁](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f601.png)
New Hosting: 3 x Shared/VPS servers ( 2 x 2GB memory 50GB storage 2TB transfer/mth, 1 x 4GB memory 80GB storage 4TB transfer/mth ), 140GB in attached block storage, edge firewall service, private VLAN for communication (free transfer) between the servers, and external transfer TB is pooled giving me 8TB/mth total. $60 /mth $USD ( almost half what I was paying
)
Usage: 1 x 2GB server for ElasticSearch, 1 x 2GB server for web/php, 1 x 4GB server for MySQL and redis cache
( I also have a couple of further Linode servers/nodes for the static and wordpress websites unrelated to primary XF site/community. $10/mth total )
Pro's:
How can XF help in future?
Background: Been with the same (great) hosting provider for ~8yrs, upping to higher spec server models twice in that time. My audience is almost wholly Australia based, but server hosting is/was West Coast USA due to cheaper pricing and greater bandwidth allowance (certainly the case 8+ years ago).
Goal: Save money, whilst still maintaining/improving site speed/experience, and better utilise technology/infrastructure for growth and easy/quick storage (attachments) expansion. Running out of storage space being my imperative for reviewing options and change, https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-to-do-with-growing-attachments-total-size.198695/
XF Site: 5.0GB database, 110GB storage, 2.8 million posts, 60k members, ~40k visitors/mth, ~1.8TB transfer/mth, Community forum active for 18 years.
Current Hosting: A single dedicated server; Intel e3 1270v3, 16GB memory, 2 x 480GB SSD storage, 20TB transfer. $115 /mth $USD
Services: NGINX webserver & php7.4-fpm assigned/tuned for max. 4GB memory, MySQL assigned 8GB memory, redis cache, elasticsearch assigned 1GB memory.
( The server was also used to host some other static and wordpress websites, unrelated to primary XF site/community )
My current hosting company offers dedicated servers only; no VPSs, no attachable block storage, no object storage, no firewall/DNS etc. I use external DNS, CDN, and backup targets/services.
After some exploring of options and pricing, and discussing experience with current customers, I chose https://www.linode.com/ for their Australia based data centre ( 11 total, worldwide ), product offering, support, and pricing. Using coupon code marketplace100 during sign-up gave me $100 credit for 60 days, to utilise and performance test their services to ensure it suited. And with the remaining credit balance, I'll effectively get the first month free
![Beaming face with smiling eyes :grin: 😁](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f601.png)
New Hosting: 3 x Shared/VPS servers ( 2 x 2GB memory 50GB storage 2TB transfer/mth, 1 x 4GB memory 80GB storage 4TB transfer/mth ), 140GB in attached block storage, edge firewall service, private VLAN for communication (free transfer) between the servers, and external transfer TB is pooled giving me 8TB/mth total. $60 /mth $USD ( almost half what I was paying
![Grinning face with smiling eyes :smile: 😄](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f604.png)
Usage: 1 x 2GB server for ElasticSearch, 1 x 2GB server for web/php, 1 x 4GB server for MySQL and redis cache
( I also have a couple of further Linode servers/nodes for the static and wordpress websites unrelated to primary XF site/community. $10/mth total )
Pro's:
- Australia data centre, brings user latency to ~25ms instead of ~160ms. ( users can feel the site being slightly 'snappier' )
- Attachable block storage, charged per GB, for quick and easy growth in attachments
- Pooling of external TB transfer, so no limit from individual server
- Edge firewall service, so you don't have to have a local server firewall using server resources/load
- Private VLAN for free traffic between the servers
- Cost saving of almost HALF of what I was previously paying
- A terrific and very usable/friendly 'dashboard' for setup/configuration/management of your services
- Attachable block storage can only be connected to one server at a time
- Load balancer service, because of the above, with multiple web/php servers is complex/risky to utilise
How can XF help in future?
- XF's object storage functionality feels risky and unsupported, so I didn't want to utilise and rely upon it. Had I felt different, I'd consider object storage for attachments instead of attachable block storage, and use the object storage for CDN purposes too.
- Consider code_cache and image_cache etc. for multiple web server and load balancer scenarios. Will make zero downtime and easier upgrades (server or XF) possible. Load balancers and multiple web/XF servers are commonly available hosting options nowadays.