-6

I have been making my very first web application, and I am using PHP to develop it.

I can see my VPS being able to flawlessly handle some decent amount of requests, even though it does few SQL queries on every request

I understand this is a very small traffic, how can I measure upon this?

Do I really need similar hardware to run a website with lower volume than StackExchange, yet with a considerable amount of users?

I am basically trying to get an idea on how resource intensive can a request be, and/or how much resources does one need for a specific amount of requests or users. I have entirely no idea.

OverCoder
  • 143
  • 8
  • 1
    What you're asking is "do I need the same hardware as one of the most popular sites on the Internet?" - of course not. Why would you? – MDMarra Jan 08 '16 at 12:14
  • @MDMarra Just because I don't know what is the actual server load cost of a web request or bunch of them – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 12:17
  • If this really seems to fit in SuperUser, I think staff should migrate this to SuperUser.., I didn't know that we can ask such questions in SuperUser.. – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 12:35

1 Answers1

3

You seem to totally ignore that Stackexchange sites are not "higher popularity" but millions of times more than you will ever have. A very small number multiplied by some millions still can be large.

On top, "all that hardware" also includes preparing for a total failure. BASIC statistics says you need 3 x your normal load in component to handle disaster - that strikes you while some machines are out for updating. Double redundancy is a standard approach. Which cuts down the hardware to one third already to handle the load.

TomTom
  • 50,857
  • 7
  • 52
  • 134
  • Ah right, so basically a third of these hardware is enough to power SE huh? Okay so this way a normal high-end computer is really enough to power a website with that has around few thousand queries per day? – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 12:06
  • @OverCoder You are aware this site is about BUSINESS administration, not some dude too cheap to host a small volume website? Superuser.com for you. – TomTom Jan 08 '16 at 12:10
  • I expect my site to grow up to have a very large volume, I just wanted to know what kind of servers do I need for the next step of my website and what are my requirements to run my website – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 12:14
  • There's no one-answer-fits-all, scaling is one of the most complex issues in IT - to be honest it doesn't sound like your kind of thing. If your site does take off, and it's making you money, then you need to get in a sysadmin who can worry about the scaling for you - you focus on the web coding and business side. – Chopper3 Jan 08 '16 at 12:24
  • Today you can use cloud services for your production. If it's well coded and set up, adding performance is as easy as paying more money. The good part is that if your usage goes down later on, then you can pay less. – Law29 Jan 08 '16 at 12:28
  • @Law29, Well cloud services might be an option, I am just scared what problems would I face if I want later to move to my own dedicated server – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 12:29
  • @OverCoder None if done competently. So you do not know system administration and have no clue about the basics of good coding - what are you doing with a website that is supposed to have a ton of traffic at some point? Get someone into your operation that is not clueless. Simple as that. – TomTom Jan 08 '16 at 13:41
  • @TomTom Who said I have no clue about good coding? Okay I am new to programming (2 years), but I am very well trained and experienced, and my code always targets the best performance and modularity, I am just not quite sure how should a great server administration be, in other words, I know how to do all that stuff, but when I was learning programming languages, I learned that if things weren't built well from the beginning, things will go way worse later, and since I am new to web development, I am collecting information about how to do and build stuff correctly with best great scalability – OverCoder Jan 08 '16 at 17:45
  • @OverCoder Without getting into the "I know everthing because I am an old hand doing that for 2 years" where it takes 3-5 to become a junior level... the way you question it totally shows a lack of basic understanding. A good programmer of server side code HAS to know how to write scalable code, the principles looked for by admins. Scaling code is a basic fundamental element for serious server side work. With 2 years experience I dare saying you are not even trained enough to see how long the road ahead is. – TomTom Jan 08 '16 at 18:37