When to get your own server?

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At what point does an info-product merchant need their own server as opposed to using a Hostgator package?

Is this a matter of traffic? What factors are involved in determining to have your own server? Thanks.
#programming #server
  • I use AQHost, the suppot is great!
  • You need a lot of traffic to need a dedicated server. We're talking many thousands of visitors every day. Of course, this all depends on how much bandwidth each visitor requires. A site that serves up a lot of videos is going to need a lot more space than a site that is mostly just static text and images.

    If you business plan is centered on having many sites, not just one, having a dedicated server may be a good idea to allow for growth.

    Sorry if this isn't very helpful. Like a lot of answers to this type of question, the most logical thing to say is: "it depends".
  • I doubt if an infoproduct site will ever need a dedicated server. Unnecessarily maintenance issues, lot more expensive, and totally not required.

    The biggest factors that will require a dedicated server are:

    1. Very high traffic - like tens of thousands of visitors a day, and a lot of custom programming that is resulting in a lot of database activity. Very unlikely in your example. But if you are a big "guru" type, and are doing a humongous launch where you have super affiliates driving millions of visitors to your site, then definitely yes, you should go for your own server.

    2. Video traffic: You should be hosting this on a burstable service like Amazon S3 anyway, even if you own your own server. Cost and performance wise, S3 will always be better than using your own server. So, this is ruled out too.

    So technically, you will never need your own server.

    Hope this helps.

    - Ravi Jayagopal
  • Get a better server when your current server can't serve?
  • When u feel u need to free urself , enter the matrix and get a new dedi
  • Hi, it is very unlikely that you would ever need a dedicated server for an information product. Like with a person computer considerations are disk space, memory, CPU, and bandwidth. Serving a PDF files to 10s of thousands of users should be no problem for a shared server. If on the other hand you have a customer database and very large media files, then you may need more CPU (which you would get from a dedicated server) and bandwidth, which you can usually buy separately.
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  • When you develop so much traffic that your hosting fees cost more then what a server would cost you then it's time to get a server.
    • [1] reply
    • Needing root access is what prompted me to get my first server.

      I have a multiple website set up and some sites require scripts in the back end that can not be installed on a shared server.

      One site, info. product.... don't think you would need a dedicated machine.

      What prompted the question? If the answer was a suggestion from a sales person, you could probably get by without for the moment.

      Cost was another determing factor. I wanted a script awhile back when I had no sales, I put off buying the script as I refused to have the server until the business was making enough to pay for it.
  • Two main factors...

    Traffic
    Custom scripts

    Traffic can be counteracted by using a cloud computing service like Amazon EC3, Google Application Engine or the like - you pay for the resources as they are used.

    I agree with ravijayagopal Video (and audio for that matter) should be on Amazon s3/Cloudfront anyway to supply the stuff in a nice manner to your customers.. it's incredibly cheap. (And yes I know there are others as well doing the media/cloud/plex thing)

    Extreme custom scripts... this is usually where you've come up against a brick wall with the hosting provider... no real solution unless you have your own server.

    Pretty much anything that uses java serverlets, beans, tomcat application server etc... needs it's own box.

    A single info product with say 1000 visitors a day - nope shared hosting is fine...
    A whole forum with thousands of visitors per hour... hmmm probably needs its own box.

    A guru about to do a big launch... perhaps they should call me first (judging by the mess that Ryan D. and Mike F. have made of their recent big launches! :-)

    Kind regards, Spencer
    • [1] reply
    • Im into hosting ad exchanges and have several of my own websites so that is why I bought my own dedicated server. It is totally worth the investment and gives you total freedom do basically whatever you want. It is an investment and If your into internet maketing or even hosting you won't be disapointed.
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    When to get your own server?

    At what point does an info-product merchant need their own server as opposed to using a Hostgator package? Is this a matter of traffic? What factors are involved in determining to have your own server? Thanks.