Hi,
First of all you would want to start with hosting the website outside
(using an ISP service) starting with a midrange bandwidth restriction,
but with the ability to upgrade to T1 or even T3 if it becomes
required. A recommendation would be to find one with this capability,
who also offers separate server service, giving you your own server to
add or upgrade the software as you require. This takes care of all the
guessing game stuff, and will keep your spending down to what you
require rather than what you think you might need. When you upgrade
you are doing it because the traffic has dictated the need for the
upgrade. Since good, stable ISP?s are setup to change in this manner,
it is an ?over-night? switch to the higher bandwidth, rather than a
month long wait for a new T-1.
The reasoning for this is that we can never really plan what is going
to happen with a website, they tend to grow and take on lives of their
own. Having the hosting with an ISP takes the burden off the Internal
staff in; trying to maintain a server, and bandwidth, and also gives
you a few quarters to see just how much you are using in hard drive
space and bandwidth. Knowing your bandwidth requirements will save you
a great deal of money when you bring the server in-house, when and if
that is ever decided. I always start outside, and then come inside,
less hassles, and more effective planning this way.
Secondly, you want to start with, and stay with, a development system
that can be used by the highest amount of ISP?s, with the largest base
of experienced programmers and developers. This, currently, suggests a
PHP/Perl scripting language, and the MySQL database. There are very
few ISP?s who do not support those three. Starting with ASP, which
only runs on a Microsoft server, is generally a mistake. It can limit
you to moving from one ISP to another, in a short amount of time. When
you make the decision to use ASP, you are looking at a) knowing the
ISP you are with is very stable and you plan on being there forever
or, b) you have moved your hosting in-house and you plan on staying
there. This goes for Cold Fusion and other development systems, which
are OS (operating system) dependent. PHP, Perl and MySQL run on
Microsoft as well as Unix/Linux systems.
Another plus to doing this, is that you can choose which type of
server you want your website running at. Most of the ISP?s I work with
have both MS and Linux servers running. Sometimes clients prefer one
or the other, or have started on a MS server, and because they got
scared with some newly discovered security hole, want to switch over
to a Linux server (or vise-versa). This allows you to make the move
with no changes to your code base.
The part of your question ?How many users a site for a tourist
attaction on estimate, and how much traffic will the site generate??
is dependent on marketing, adverts, events at the park, trends in
tourist travel and moneys, and many, many other things (as I?m sure
you have already guessed). Disney, for instance, started out as a very
high traffic point on the web and has dropped considerably in the last
years. It is best to plan your site for success as well as famine.
One side note here, and then I?ll get back on track. There is a
website called www.slashdot.org, which has spawned the term
?slashdotted? to mean more than the original concept. Slashdot is a
very heavy traffic site with tech people, seeking news and ?cool?
things to see on the web. When a website is listed in one of the
articles, the resulting traffic hit has been known to crash those
poor, interesting, servers, from people going to the server from the
link. We call this ?slashdotted?. It can happen with several points of
interest on the Internet, like normal news sites, not just slashdot.
Having and ISP buffer zone for these times is a good thing.
ISP services normally have Secure web (SSL) available in their
packages. Again, a good reason to start there. It is already setup,
and it works in a stable fashion.
In looking for an ISP, choose one that has Secure Access, via SSH,
rather than only FTP and telnet. This is a bit of a hassle for the
programmers, but in the long run, much better.
You will also want an internal server, which runs the same versions of
Perl/PHP and MySQL as the ISP server does. This server is your
development server. It is where the programmers test ideas, create
systems, and get things stable. Once they are stable and tested, the
program or upgrade or new module is then posted to the ISP server
where the world is watching. This system also acts as a back up area
just in case an angry lightning bolt hits the ISP building.
Your internal connection to the Internet can be what ever you need.
Most companies get away with DSL service. Very few need a T1. Since
development is done in-house and the website is hosted through an ISP,
this generally works out just fine.
Redundancy is expensive for in-house systems. Double T-1?s in case one
goes down, double servers, backup systems, replacement servers,
replacement routers, all of these fatten the budget required, and the
money is only well spent if something goes wrong, and at that point it
is priceless. A good ISP has all of these in place; that is their
purpose.
I do a great deal of web development on contract and stay away from
ISP recommendations. There are several good ones out there, great and
small. Just because one is huge, doesn?t mean it won?t go out of
business, take for instance the @Home systems. But I believe I have,
in this answer, described what a good ISP looks like.
Web Hosting Tutorial,
http://web-hosting.candidinfo.com/web-hosting-tutorial.asp
Managing IP Video Streaming Bandwidth
http://www.netforecast.com/Articles/Streaming%20Video%20Bandwidth%20WP.pdf
Thanks,
Webadept-ga |
