Is this possible in Zen Cart?

Hi,

I wil ltry and explain what i am after as simply as possible.

Lets say i have a 1gb file which my customers are going to download when they purchase the digital product on my web site.

Now my host allows my unlimited bw but i am on a shared server which means most of the time the max download speed is around 330 kb/s.

If i know that for a certain time every month, say 3 days i will have 20 people trying to download the 1gb file at approx the same time the 300kb/s is going to be split between the 20 users and who ever else is sharing my server.

This causes me a dilemma, my customers are going to be a tad upset if they can only download at 15kbs or less (which will take them forever as the actual file sizes they are downloading is closer to 10gb) so i could get a dedicated server which is expensive and would only be used when needed (which is 3 days out of every month) which is a waste of money.

Now my question is, can i use a "mirror" with zencart?

For instance if i get a Rapidshare Trafficshare account at 44 euros per month i can move 500gb at very high speeds, 1mb/s and above for multiple users, pretty much what ever the customers download speed is it will max or get close to it.

So is there a way of me using zencart on my domain but having the downloads come from the Rapidshare servers instead of using my host?

many thanks and i hope thats not to complicated with inane drivvle :O

all help and advice very much appreciated,

Mark

Now my host allows my unlimited bw but i am on a shared server which means most of the time the max download speed is around 330 kb/s.
Should be governed by the speed of the customers link unless your host throttles this function...
So is there a way of me using zencart on my domain but having the downloads come from the Rapidshare servers instead of using my host?
Not easily or securely...
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=292

Is your 1GB already compressed??

The built-in functionality for serving downloads works only with the server on which the store operates.

However, one could extend the feature to serve from a different location by doing custom coding, whether to support an API with the likes of Amazon S3 or SimpleCDN or some other service, or write their own security API to interact with a different mirror server/service as necessary.

Granted, if you don't care about security around the download links, you could serve things from anywhere you like by just posting a download link on your site. But that defeats the purpose of security and ecommerce in the eyes of many merchants.

Thanks for the info guys....

kobra;753841]Should be governed by the speed of the customers link unless your host throttles this function...

Well this is not an issue as the speed restrictions are on my side (my host) as i am on a shared server so the BW speed i am allocated is dependant on how many users downloading from me and how many "other" people are on the same shared server. The 100mbit line is split between however many people they have on the shared server.

Not easily or securely...
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=292

I will have a read of this, thanks ;)

Is your 1GB already compressed?

The 1gb was a made up number, the actual size will be somewhere in between 5-10 gb of compressed files yes.

many thanks,

Mark

kobra:

Should be governed by the speed of the customers link unless your host throttles this function...

Not easily or securely...
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=292

Is your 1GB already compressed??

DrByte:

The built-in functionality for serving downloads works only with the server on which the store operates.

However, one could extend the feature to serve from a different location by doing custom coding, whether to support an API with the likes of Amazon S3 or SimpleCDN or some other service, or write their own security API to interact with a different mirror server/service as necessary.

Granted, if you don't care about security around the download links, you could serve things from anywhere you like by just posting a download link on your site. But that defeats the purpose of security and ecommerce in the eyes of many merchants.

Thanks for your reply.

I do care about the security and the functionality of the cart, i was simply hoping that there was some way to integrate or spread the BW/Speed of downloads between Rapidshare premium trafficshare account and my all ready used domain.

It seems it cant be done, agh well thanks for your reply.

Mark

Kobra,

reading the link you sent me it sounds like there is a way of doing it by using Download by Redirect (i think) but it doesnt really explain how and seems rather vague. This is all very new to me still and seems a tad complicated for somethign i thought should have been rather simple.

Could i just create a link to a secure RS link in the email that is sent when the cutomer clicks the payment button in the cart instead of the link which would direct them to the files in the download folder?

I am finding it all very confusing and it seems the easiest way is just to pay for a dedicated server, move everything to that box and deal with it that way and suffer the additional costly expense.

thanks again,

Mark

reading the link you sent me it sounds like there is a way of doing it by using Download by Redirect (i think) but it doesnt really explain how and seems rather vague
While I have not attempted to do this in this way you might play around with the references in your configure.php file for where the dir to file system to the download folder is
Also see https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=280

Where normally it is in relation to the dir FS catalog the above references and eludes that you can change it to something/somewhere else

// * DIR_FS_* = Filesystem directories (local/physical)
  //the following path is a COMPLETE path to your Zen Cart files. eg: /var/www/vhost/accountname/public_html/store/
  define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/cl/public_html/');

  define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'download/');
  define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/');

As I assume that you will have another account with another domain name you can try

define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', 'http://other_domain.com/download/');

it seems the easiest way is just to pay for a dedicated server, move everything to that box and deal with it that way and suffer the additional costly expense.
A low cost(but more expensive that shared hosting) dedicated server means that you need to become your own server admin, an additional responsibility that you may or may not want to pile on top of running you business...
There are fully managed dedicated servers available at a larger/higher cost

kobra:

While I have not attempted to do this in this way ...

define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', 'http://other_domain.com/download/');

The code isn't written to work that way.
However, if you wanted to write custom code to handle both the security and the delivery, you might be able to make that work.

I think it's simpler to write an interface to create the link on S3 or a CDN service (not sure if RS allows it) to create a limited-use unique link for the customer when they are ready to do their download, and supply that URL to them via their My Account page (or email if you wanted to get extra clever).

DrByte:

The code isn't written to work that way.
Thank You....
I was not sure about this but thought that it might be worth a try?

Thanks guys your help is much appreciated however it all seems far too complicated, overly complicated in my opinion but such is life.

I will go with a dedicated server which is much easier for me as this is where my background is so there are no admin issues to consider.

many thanks,

Mark