Who's to blame for server load?

worc

If a server has too much load is it the hosting provider that's putting too many sites onto one server or is it not their fault at all and is it generally more down to just a traffic heavy site that is to blame?

I thought that if someone buys say 20GB of space and gets a certain amount of bandwidth for their hosting that it should be prevented from going above those limits to prevent overloading the server and slowing down every site on it?

Did a quick search and notice one or two comments stating it's the hosting providers putting too many sites onto one server so it gets overloaded - that they'll state on their pricing for the hosting that they can provide X amount of space and Y amount of bandwidth but then they pile sites onto a server so that the bandwidth isn't actually possible.

I recently had some serious load issues and got my host to move my sites to another server, all was fine for a few months but now the server loads is up again and slowing the loading of my sites.

Whether google changed algorithyms while the sites were slow and I had them moved or the slow loading got them in trouble with google (within webmaster tools it did show the site loading times seriously increase to something like 90% of sites online were faster than mine), but the one business site I maintain for someone dropped from first in google to tenth around this same time - it's back up to second now but if it's the slow loading times that's affecting it's rank I'm getting a bit p*ssed this is happening again.

I know a virtual server would sort out the issues but the sites I'm running don't come close to the bandwidth or space limits from a shared hosting so it's not that my sites are the ones getting the large load and causing everything to be slow - it shouldn't be the case that I'm the one having to consider it. Is it hosting provider I should be consdering moving from since this has happened twice now or is it not their fault really?

aidan_walsh

I'm going to bounce this to Servers & Systems as I think it would be better suited there than to the Design forum.

worc

Cheers - didn't even realise this forum existed!

Tomtata

This happened to me last year, it was a VPS working great for a few months then everything started slowing down - hosting provider moved the vm to a different server worked great for another couple of months then same again - Hosting provider stopped selling vps while upgrading their setup and ignored my issue.

To give a quick example I was getting disk write speeds of >600kb painful....

Anyway moved host and never looked back.

Getting +80mb disk write speeds now & 25mb down/up speeds :-)

Hosting provider is to blame.

Captain Commie

Tomtata wrote: »

This happened to me last year, it was a VPS working great for a few months then everything started slowing down - hosting provider moved the vm to a different server worked great for another couple of months then same again - Hosting provider stopped selling vps while upgrading their setup and ignored my issue.

To give a quick example I was getting disk write speeds of >600kb painful....

Anyway moved host and never looked back.

Getting +80mb disk write speeds now & 25mb down/up speeds :-)

Hosting provider is to blame.

Ok, you didnt actually answer the question, OP is talking about shared hosting and you are talking about VPS

Having worked in the hosting industry for a good while i can easily say its not as easy as saying that one person/entity is to blame.

Couple of possible issues below:

Possible problems where host is to blame

1) Loading too many sites onto a server that can not cope with the load.
2) Not monitoring server performance and taking pre-emptive maintenance.
3) Mixing reseller and shared hosting accounts the same server.
4) Not effectively securing servers against DDOS

Possible problems where host is not to blame

1) Poorly written code on a site
2) Site getting a large number of hits
3) someone else on server using it to seed downloads (illegally)
4) someone trying to hack server


There are many many more reasons, but the most common one is sites using more than their fair share, which is turn is also a host problem as they should be making sure that they have resource quotas in place for more than just space and bandwidth.

worc

Thanks for the replies!

innovated wrote: »

There are many many more reasons, but the most common one is sites using more than their fair share, which is turn is also a host problem as they should be making sure that they have resource quotas in place for more than just space and bandwidth.

See that last point is what I was thinking. If you're offering certain bandwidths/speeds/space etc there surely has to be quotas so that even if a person's hosting is getting a serious increase in traffic then it is only their resources that are being affected and not anyone elses.

The host I'm with is in the boards.ie list in the S&WD Design forum and since this is the second time this is happening would anyone recommend moving host?

Captain Commie

How much traffic are you pushing and is the site of any great value, ie is it making you money.

if so then you may want to look at putting it on its own server, or even cloud vps.

I currently host some sites on a vps that i get from VPS247, for £5 (+vat) a month for a node with 256ram and 6gb hdd its fairly cheap and reliable. You can setup a solid VPS with cPanel, 768Mb ram and 24gb hdd for £20 a month (+vat) including the cpanel license, also they have android and iphone apps for managing your account so can control the servers remotely