Resource Consumption, Fear and Woe
Stumbled upon this thread by complete accident.
Now I can see why a recent question I made about 'yellow-light' warnings was dismissed fairly quickly.
I have to wonder, why the "FAQ" section doesn't have (A) detailed instructions on how to monitor your server for your own server consumption (cpu cycles, threads), and what would be considered 'too much', and (B) detailed notes for designing PHP scripts that will self-govern so as not to disintegrate under increasing load.
Obviously, there are many users here, who (on reading that above-mentioned thread and others) are not worried about the popularity of their sites leading to a catastrophic breakdown. So I have to ask: "why not?" I've read these posts, I am convinced this isn't bravado. Nor do I feel they mean that they have no fear that any of their sites will ever become popular.
So what is it? Has their design included and confronted that potential? Are they somehow able to remain constantly informed as to their resource consumption, and do they know when that consumption reaches warning zones, and have they built site-hobbling switches, ready to throw at a moment's notice, to prevent account suspension? If so, HOW? Can their help be enlisted, even at a cost, to help other more junior Dathorn customers avoid the risk of being crushed under the weight of their own popularity?
I'm not new to site design, but I *AM* new to load estimation. I have a number of projects under works, (as do most of us, I'm sure) where the eventual goal is success and popularity and moving to dedicated hosting. The question is WHEN. Too soon and you waste money and increase risk. Too late, and (from obviously long and painful history) you risk suicide as your site collapses ungracefully when your Dathorn account is suspended with harsh cold non-customizeable warm fluffy fully-customizeable error messages.
So, obviously, I'm worried as all hell. I have NO ability to determine where this point will be, NO ability to assess what is 'normal', and what is 'dangerous' levels of usage. I feel like I'm living in that infamous flies-in-the-bell-jar experiment, where the flies double in number every hour... and no alarms are tripped for days, until the flies take up 25% of the bell jar, at which point they have 2 hours left until they've filled the jar.
I understand Andrew's position with regards to the cut-offs of spiked users. Obviously, the "Slashdot" | "PennyArcade" | "CNN" effect will do that. And I feel for the site admin whose site gets smashed onto the rocks of popularity without sufficient warning. But there's nothing that can be done about that, really. Andrew does what needs to be done for the rest of the customers.
But for a site spreading by word of mouth, growing steadily and slowly, without a sudden spike, there STILL doesn't appear to be any facility in place to either get an automated warning, or to give customers the tools to warn themselves, when the site is APPROACHING danger levels. It seems that even that sort of user may simply wake up one morning to a suspended account, and admonitions that they should have somehow seen it coming.
So how can I get this? I don't want to live in fear and ignorance any longer. Please, help!
Now I can see why a recent question I made about 'yellow-light' warnings was dismissed fairly quickly.
I have to wonder, why the "FAQ" section doesn't have (A) detailed instructions on how to monitor your server for your own server consumption (cpu cycles, threads), and what would be considered 'too much', and (B) detailed notes for designing PHP scripts that will self-govern so as not to disintegrate under increasing load.
Obviously, there are many users here, who (on reading that above-mentioned thread and others) are not worried about the popularity of their sites leading to a catastrophic breakdown. So I have to ask: "why not?" I've read these posts, I am convinced this isn't bravado. Nor do I feel they mean that they have no fear that any of their sites will ever become popular.
So what is it? Has their design included and confronted that potential? Are they somehow able to remain constantly informed as to their resource consumption, and do they know when that consumption reaches warning zones, and have they built site-hobbling switches, ready to throw at a moment's notice, to prevent account suspension? If so, HOW? Can their help be enlisted, even at a cost, to help other more junior Dathorn customers avoid the risk of being crushed under the weight of their own popularity?
I'm not new to site design, but I *AM* new to load estimation. I have a number of projects under works, (as do most of us, I'm sure) where the eventual goal is success and popularity and moving to dedicated hosting. The question is WHEN. Too soon and you waste money and increase risk. Too late, and (from obviously long and painful history) you risk suicide as your site collapses ungracefully when your Dathorn account is suspended with harsh cold non-customizeable warm fluffy fully-customizeable error messages.
So, obviously, I'm worried as all hell. I have NO ability to determine where this point will be, NO ability to assess what is 'normal', and what is 'dangerous' levels of usage. I feel like I'm living in that infamous flies-in-the-bell-jar experiment, where the flies double in number every hour... and no alarms are tripped for days, until the flies take up 25% of the bell jar, at which point they have 2 hours left until they've filled the jar.
I understand Andrew's position with regards to the cut-offs of spiked users. Obviously, the "Slashdot" | "PennyArcade" | "CNN" effect will do that. And I feel for the site admin whose site gets smashed onto the rocks of popularity without sufficient warning. But there's nothing that can be done about that, really. Andrew does what needs to be done for the rest of the customers.
But for a site spreading by word of mouth, growing steadily and slowly, without a sudden spike, there STILL doesn't appear to be any facility in place to either get an automated warning, or to give customers the tools to warn themselves, when the site is APPROACHING danger levels. It seems that even that sort of user may simply wake up one morning to a suspended account, and admonitions that they should have somehow seen it coming.
So how can I get this? I don't want to live in fear and ignorance any longer. Please, help!
Ok, you guys start coding.
(whew - big sigh of relief).
Comment