Dedicated host recommendation?

[apt3studios]

Hey guys/gals,
I have been deploying zen cart for my clients for some time now. Have an issue with a particular client that is a well known motorcycle stunt team around the world and is one of our larger sites. Here's the rundown. The site we deployed a few months ago started causing high cpu usage and was crashing the server every few days the main cause by the hosting company was attributed to zencart (I think its the overall picture). Since then, we have posted thier old site back up due to these issues. The site gets roughly 200,000 to 500,000 hits per day. Streams tons of video (streaming flash and client & fan posted vids), while handling a 5 GB forum MySQL database, as well as 2 instances of coppermine galleries. And of course a large zen-cart 1.2.6 with roughly a couple hundred product categories with many attributes related to make and model of motorcycles for each product attaining 10-15 sales per day.

Everything was working fine until these issues started coming and then they kept escalating.

1. Site kept crashing while visiting the cart section under load.
2. Some customers were reporting that they were being charged multiple times for a single purchase (one customer got charged 23 times! :) wish i could get away with that)
3. Some customers (not all) could not complete orders.
4. Major site slowdown during peak-times.

Questions:
1. Do you think these problems were generated by an underpowered server? (This is what I think, they have had server probs in the past and were bartering for this server anyway... ie not my choice.. the company is occshosting)
2. Could the combination of streaming video, large active forum, and large zen be creating a scenario where there just isn't enough power left for zen?
3.The main problems are only in the zen databse, all other data is running smooth albeit a bit slow. Could the zen code optimization be at fault, should I start looking at other carts?
4.Any recommendatons for dedicated hosting or other info that may be able to handle this workload and not break the bank? Looking at esecuredata.com right now, not sure about them though.

Any insight would be appreciated and I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday!

Nick B. ~loyal zencartian

[BREZ]

If you go to your zen admin, tools, server/version info

you will see what is loaded and configured.

Also you can tell how its overloaded.

on my server, i have 7 zencarts loaded up, the draw(even at peak times) on cpu usage is almost nil.

Files such as .avi .mpeg etc. have the biggest draw.

[apt3studios]

Thanks for the info.. I'll check that out. There IS a lot of vids and that is the main draw of the site as its the new functions we added so all the current users are checking out those portions regularly and are so far the most visited portions of the site. It may well be that the vids are causing the issues then.

[BREZ]

The obvious answer here is split the websites around different servers, and keep ecommerce sites seperate from servers running any high load sites if possible.

[Website Rob]

When looking at tweaking a Server there are many variables to consider.
- number of hits and unique visitors
- number of errors from web pages
- optimizing Apache / mySQL
- hack attempts
- maintaining good Security

Of course there is also the Hardware specs such as CPU size and amount of RAM.

Only by considering and focusing on the above can one truly get their Server under control.


We have a Client with a Dedicated Server and who also does business World wide. They get approx. 120,000 hits per day but only using about 1.5 GB of daily Data transfer.

Server Hardware
CPU: P4 3.2 (hyper-threading)
RAM: 1GB
Hard Drive: 2x120G SATA
Operating System: CentOS 4.4


They do run a fairly current version of Zen Cart (yours is very old and should be upgraded) and were having some excessive connections. That was mostly due to their Forum, 1,800 Members and were running phpBB v2 but have recently upgraded to v3 and those excessive connection problems have disappeared. Their Zen Cart side has just over 100 Products with 500 Attributes and runs without any problems. Server load is usually around 0.20 or less, at any given time.

I would say you should deal with a DC or Server Admin who understands your needs and can recommend / provide you with a Server that fits for you. Not sure what your Budget is but between the monthly cost for a decent Server & Admin plus the big job of upgrading your Zen Cart, initial cost could be hefty. Has to be done at some point though and in the end, you and your Clients / Visitors will reap the benefits.