Hi,

I'm currently evaluating DNN to use for a friend's business and I'm trying to get some information from folks who have run multiple portals so I can do some hardware and hosting requirements. He currently has about 100 employees and they each want their own portal as a way to reach out to the customers. He doesn't forsee the traffic being really high (maybe 10-50 hits per portal per day).

• How much database storage does each portal usually consume?
• What sort of bandwidth usage has people seen on low to medium traffic portal?
• How many portals are possible per server (assuming you're going to a place like GoDaddy or MaximumASP for a virtual private server)?
• At what point is going to a dedicated server recommended?
• Any recommended Hosting plans?

Thanks!
Winthrop

On the dedicated server issue. I would reccomend a dedicated server if you are spending more than $75 a month on hosting.

Thanks.

I still would not mind knowing for planning purposes what a typical database usage is per small-to-medium sized portal along with bandwidth consumption. Especially from people who have been running DNN for quite a long time.

-Winthrop

Winthrop,

Most DNN database sizes are under 10 MB that I can see at my work we have about 300 or more on one Dedicated SQL server all running DNN the larger ones are like 20 or 30 MB and very few have over 50 MB its the logfiles that you need to shrink or they grow larger than the database in no time at all.
 
The bandwith for what you are talking about is a minor amount most dedicated hosting plans include it easy. You would not need that much at most our server has 250 domains and probably 400 parent portals and it uses less than 300GB total from our ISP readout.

Roger

I forgot one other very important thing a Virtual private server in Windows is in my opionion by far worse decision for cost and overall performance issues. If you plan to host Windows sites and DNN I highly recommend a dedicated server of your own you can get them for the same cost of these virtual servers for Windows in most cases and you will need the access that a virtual cannot provide. The go daddy virtual server is good for Linux hosting. You will quickly find that having Terminal server remote access to all functions of the server are very crucial if you have that many sites planned.  If  you want any help PM  I can help you out easy I setup alot of DNN dedicated servers at my work.


Roger

Roger, are you hosting the sites and running the db's of the same server?

If so what kind of specs does the server have?

Winthrop wrote:

Hi, I'm currently evaluating DNN to use for a friend's business and I'm trying to get some information from folks who have run multiple portals so I can do some hardware and hosting requirements. He currently has about 100 employees and they each want their own portal as a way to reach out to the customers. He doesn't forsee the traffic being really high (maybe 10-50 hits per portal per day). How much database storage does each portal usually consume? What sort of bandwidth usage has people seen on low to medium traffic portal? How many portals are possible per server (assuming you're going to a place like GoDaddy or MaximumASP for a virtual private server)? At what point is going to a dedicated server recommended? Any recommended Hosting plans? Thanks! Winthrop

Hey Win:

My suggestion, if you're doing this for a friend's business is to co-lo.  Go to wherever on the net (zipzoomfly.com is a good server supplier), and build yerself a 1u or preferably 2u server using the Supermicro stuff.  You can then build it, get the SQL License (or lease it), load the OS you want, build and test the site, and then I use http://www.northcomp.com ...it's owned by a guy, Eric Smith, who's a really good person, answers the phone himself, is the author of a book on ASP.NET, and charges 50 bucks per month per 1u.  So, you could, if you built yerself a 1u server, pay 50 bucks a month (plus the stinkin' MSSQL license, which he can lease you).  Ours is a Microserver, w/a Pentum IV at 2.8Ghz, w/1G RAM, RAID 4, W2K3 server (which is  a pain still, I admit), SQL2K, and the whole thing cost us less than 2K.  Of course we had to build the server ourselves, but it wasn't that big a deal. 

In retrospect, I'd have spent more time looking for a non Intel processor, like AMD.  Don't get 64 bit, because SQL won't run on it...and also a bunch of other stuff.  A nice fast AMD process that'll fit a 1u, and if you don't need the RAID 4 (just RAID 2 say w/a backup disk, using W2K3's improved backup scheduling and shadowing), you can get in for less than 1300 bucks or so up front cost.  And then it's 50 bucks a month after that.  For a 1G RAM, 2 160GB disks, and you don't have to deal w/ANY of the shared server issues, which drive most of the people here nuts.

And yeah, Eric has a referral service.  Don't tell him you heard it from me, because he already knows we don't accept it.  We happily pay the 50/month.  Six years ago, I was paying 1200+ bucks a MONTH for bandwith, and 900 bucks a month to *rent* a dedicated server, from Innerhost.  Nice guys too, but thieves. 

Eric  is knowledgable, goes above and beyond the call of duty (helped me set up my SMTP server on our W2K3 server...though he also provides free SMTP servers for you on his boxes if you want), and, well, we couldn't be happier.  And the poor guy is makin' 50 bucks a month, so I'm always trying to figure out how to get him some more customers. 

You can email him at eric@northcomp.com  If you can get a better deal for 50 bucks a month let me know.  There is the up-front costs though.  If you figure the server will last 4-5 years (these days, that's not such an issue, ya know?  No monitor to worry about, and if something dies, you replce the *part*.  Most Supermicros also have dual processor capabilities, and w/RAID 4 you don't have to worry about HD's going.  Just mail Eric the replacement HD and he'll plug it in for you.

Hope this helps.  I've heard so many horror stories about shared servers.  I mean there are good ones out there, but they'll cost 50 bucks or so anyway.  Hope this helps.

Yes it has SQL on the same box it is a Dell Dual Xeon 2.8 with 3 gb DDR2 ram it has 10MBPs burstable BW connection in a colo data center.

This box has been running no problem for around 9 months with this many sites on it we have room for another 50 before adding more ram probably.

Wow. Great info!

I think this will go a long way to help me plan out this hosting for my friend. For the longest time I was worried the typical DB usage was going to be 50 Megs per portal on the average. That cost alone would kill my friend using a VPS and paying the extra fees for extra SQL storage.

So it sounds like going a dedicated server route (or a co-lo solution) and buying our own Win2k3 and SQL Server licenses is the way to go.

Any recommendations on ISP's or dedicated hosting providers? Sounds like godaddy is giving people problems, so I'm steering away from them. AAAVA suggested northcomp.com, so I'll look into them, but I'd like to hear what other folks are using and what their experiences with them were. Local to me is FiberCloud (recently bought out Compass Communications), but I haven't checked out what their dedicated/co-lo pricing is either.

Thanks!
Winthrop

I use Server Beach and have been very happy with them. Been with them with dedicateds for over a year now. They just introduced some SQL Workgroup packages if you don't want to spring the 4K or more for a single processor license and they offer dual processor machines as well. I really like their "Rapid Reboot" program, it's saved my bacon a few times.

Server Beach for more info.

Ohh, BTW, I do use the referals.
Code: 89AFFJQ3QG

I use a dedicated server too (hosted in The Netherlands, probably a bit more expensive than US based) with a P4 3.2, 1GB of RAM and a 200GB disk. This is more than enough for the first 50-100 installations of DotNetNuke, if they're not that busy.
A few things to note: are you going for one installation with multiple child/parent portals, or will each one get it's own installation? There's a big difference in performance, disk- and database size!

Another thing to note is how to use your SQL server. About those log-files: unless it's really important data and they want to be able to recover changes back to a minute a go, your db's log files will grow massively. I use the simple recovery model, and make a backup each 24h. saves a lot of space! when actually starting to set it up, there are numerous other things to watch for... but first things first.
 
If it is just one install, it's the cheapest to go for normal hosting (less control, but probably cheaper). If there will be multiple installs, go for dedicated!

CasperJuna wrote:

A few things to note: are you going for one installation with multiple child/parent portals, or will each one get it's own installation? There's a big difference in performance, disk- and database size!

This will most likely be a single installation with multiple child/parent portals. Would having each portal using it's own instance of DNN be more efficient? From what I've been reading, it didn't seem that way, but I might have misread the documentation.

Also, what happens if I need to split between multiple servers? Is all the data stored within the database and can I have each instance point to the same database so it acts like a single instance? Or is this something that is part of the "web farm" feature that is coming in version 3.1?

Thanks everyone for fielding my newbie questions. Truly appreciate it.

-Winthrop

Winthrop ,

If you want to order SQL2000 Server and Windows 2003 Server and this is for your internal  this can be purchased from places like Dell when you order a server. Another option if this is for your internal use and  you only need around 25 DB is Windows small business server 2003 it has SQL bundled and you can buy this for like $500 or less

If you plan to use SQL in a resell hosting environment you need a Dedicated SQL Server from a Dedicated host that is properly licensed to resell SQL providing this to you as a per processor cost if you want unlimited SQL databases on this Dedicated SQL server.
 
 Or you can get the SPLA (service provider license agreement) on your own by contacting MicroSoft direct,  I have the phone contact info of who to call to start this.


With DotNetNuke you can run one instance of DNN with 100s of sites on one wwwrot folder and one SQL database managing them through a parent or child portal.

Or you can Run DotNetNuke with 100s of Instances all having a seperate wwwroot folder and SQL database the advantage to keeping sites seperate is portability and backups. What if you build a site in DNN as a parent portal then it gets huge overnight success then you will be more than likely forced to rebuild the site into its own instance hindering your success.

The process of extracting the parent portal SQL data out of SQL has not been perfected that I have seen the only way to get it out is to rebuild most of it by cut and paste or write custom scripts to extract it from SQL  I may be wrong our outdated on this things change so fast. I tried the templates it is a great start but not perfected yet.  I prefer to keep all important sites installed as a seperate DNN instance on its own SQL database this way it is very easy to backup and restore or move around if needed.

I am in the Puget Sound and will be glad to call you or give you my number if I can figure how to PM it to you and offer a phone call of time to help you save time. You have a few high quality data centers right in the Puget Sound to choose from I have used most of them in the Seattle Tacoma area also in California or Texas I can refer some great data centers to use and tell you the ones to avoid.






 
 

One reason I like to keep all my sites under one "instance" is that my site that gets 150 people a day keeps the asp.net "application process" from shutting down. This way I don't get that 30 second wait that you would get if the asp.net "application process" has to start up agin because it hasn't had any hits for awhile.

adefwebserver wrote:

This way I don't get that 30 second wait that you would get if the asp.net "application process" has to start up agin because it hasn't had any hits for awhile.

So what have people been using as a solution around this? Having a separate machine that visits a dummy page on that instance every 5 minutes? (Dummy to get around recording excess page hits on a specific page). Is there other solutions people use?

-Winthrop