Large Scale MultiSite

  • So let me apologize first if this is in the wrong section! Its definitely about multisites but possibly installation?

    Ok then onwards!

    I’ve been given the responsibility of devising a system which can handle hundreds if not thousands of sites as apart of one multisite. I know my way around the run of the mill website but a system like this is still on the fringes for me, and need to find a platform that would support this.

    Let me preface my questions with the fact that I’m NOT asking for a suggestion for a specific vendor but rather am on a path to find out what service I’m looking for, as I’m sure the moderators would look down on that.

    I’ve researched this topic and have come up with plugins that will split the database up for load balancing and that makes perfect sense in my mind, where I run into a road block is processor speed and disk space. I would like the ability first to allow each of these sites upload right around 2gb apiece, basically I never want to hit a wall with that. I also dont have any idea how much processing power this would take as I’ve lived in shared hosting for most of my web life and never really had to worry about it.

    The thing that drives me nuts is I know wordpress.com does it and it handles its 40million users somehow!

    So again: I’m not asking for a vendor comparison.

    I just am curious if I’m looking for a VPN or Dedicated Server setup? or is this better suited for a Windows Azure/Amazon S3 & EC2 cloud enigma? Does anyone have any success stories with something similar or know of good tutorials I can look into or any insite into how wordpress.com has it setup?

    Keep in mind as well that I dont have any sort of IT degree though with a decent guide I’m not afraid to jump into some commandline goodness, we are also a smaller company so hiring an entire IT department is sort of out of the question.

    Thanks so much for your help

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • This is probably going to sound bad, but if you can’t afford to hire IT staff to look after the system, then you won’t be able to afford a system to run what you’re looking at. At least when you get to where you want to be.

    Their system uses a lot of dedicated servers, load balancers and a lot more stuff around the rest of it. I’m sure that someone here that’s closer to the WordPress.com system could expand more.

    You can always start off with a VPS is a good idea. That can be reprovisioned and expanded when things get a bit crowded. Once you grow out of that move to a more powerful dedicated server. When you out gro wthat you can start looking at multiple servers all the way up to running your own data centres if you get big enough. Just start small though because you don’t want to spend $1,000’s on equipment and hosting if the idea doesn’t pan out the way that you think that it will.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    I have to back up catacaustic on this one.

    Hundreds of sites can run on a dedicated server, manned by one person with moderate amounts of skill. THOUSANDS and I hire a dedicated server guy who is an SQL pro and split my DBs with HyperDB or SharDB, and pay him a lot of money. You don’t need a department, but you need an expert.

    Their system uses a lot of dedicated servers, load balancers and a lot more stuff around the rest of it. I’m sure that someone here that’s closer to the WordPress.com system could expand more.

    You’re only missing nginx and the DB splitting, but really that’s what they’re doing. I think Memcache is thrown in as well.

    This is not small, this is not cheap, and this is not for the rookies. It doesn’t matter what CMS you used, though, at that size, your scale has to match your skills or you’re in for a world of hurt.

    Thread Starter canheread7

    (@canheread7)

    Thanks you guys for your replies!

    So I wouldn’t consider myself a rookie, lets say and enthusiast. And I completely understand what you all are saying and wouldn’t dream of minimizing this feat by expecting that I can do it alone so let me rephrase my question:

    We are currently at around the 100 site mark expecting to grow exponentially. I want to prepare for the event that we out grow our shared hosting soon but when we make the switch I would like to switch to something that A) would be affordable and manageable by me but also B) at which point we have a system big enough to hire a DB Guru to handle everything I don’t want him to have to undo & fix all of the stuff that I’ve already done. So I just want to be able to be prepared for exponential growth while minimizing the cleanup needed to be done someone else when we get large. Now as far as TB of data and scaleability is this more of a Dedicated Server path or more of a Cloud Computing Amazon/S3/EC2 kind ok deal?

    Thanks again!

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Personally I’d use a Dedi. Cloud’s not bad, but I don’t know if anyone’s done a large scale Multisite of that nature.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘Large Scale MultiSite’ is closed to new replies.