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solution for eCommerce and digital files - please advise
adamus007p
Member
Hello,
I am looking for a solution for the ecommerce which sell digital files.
Main customers are from UK, DE, FR and USA.
Which hosting, VPS, solution do you recommend?
I read a lot here but now I am confused.
I was thinking to keep it cost effective so I was thinking about
- One or two VPS (one in EU and 2nd in USA) for the website.
- separates storage VPS.
- Amazon CDN or Cloudflare for graphics.
- backup server mainly for website and database
Is is worth to search a solutions with anycast or create it by myself?
Any advice, tutorials?
I was looking at Amazon AWS but it cost a lot, so in this case I would be thinking to use it for website only. Data (digital files) I would keep and host from other server/VPS.
At the moment I need about 10GB for website and database + about 300GB for files (more in the future).
I am thinking about to scale it adding new VPS or extend the hdd.
There will be no problem us next VPS from perspective of our ecommerce.
I will be grateful for your advises and experiences.
I am reading but I would like to ask you experienced colleagues.
Thank you in advance.
Comments
These are legal files, right?
Audio, video, e-text?
What bandwidth do you need?
Yes, legal files. I keep all copyrights. At the moment only audio files. Audio files are zipped. Maybe in future video when I will start record tutorials. At the moment we don't need steaming.
The bandwidth is used 1-1,5TB per month.
For better scale services I am thinking about split shop from files.
The shop keep on fast VPS and files keep on slower, here I need at least 300GB.
I was thinking about Arubacloud for a shop or even Amazon AWS.
But I really don't know how much RAM, CPU I need.
There is about 350k views per a month.
May you or someone help and advise?
Thank you in advance for your time.
@adamus007p
Some hopefully helpful remarks.
The core number is the about 350 kViews per month. That can be handled even by small VPS.
I would advise against multiple front servers because that opens up a can of worms particularly with the database. Instead I'd suggest to chose a good quality VPS from a good provider in a good location like London or Amsterdam. Additionally you may have static content like e.g. graphics served through a cheap or free CDN.
Also note that for your main content, the big files, the location isn't important. Downloading a say 500 MB file from Amsterdam or from NewYork makes almost no difference because the initial delay is neglegible compared to the total download time. What's important is the connectivity and how fast your VPS can deliver data which is why below I suggest to go for an SSD.
Based on the data you provide I'd suggest to look at VPS offers in the range from 2 vCores 1GB mem, 250 Mb/s to 4 vCores, 2 GB mem, 1Gb/s. Most VPS come with much smaller disks than 300 GB but most of the better providers will offer additional disk space.
For the backup server you might want to look for a storage VPS. Those are usually weaker machines but with plenty disk space. I'd suggest to go for one with Raid 1 or 5/6.
You might want to consider having the files on the "main" VPS along with the shop and on a SSD disk to make sure that your files are served quickly to your customers. Saving the storage server and instead adding more fast disk space to your main server will almost certainly also be cheaper.
hello @jsg, thank you for your post.
so you suggest keep everything on SSD and do not split into 2VPS?
For me it could be even 2xVPS for 150GB of storage each.
May you recommend me any company to have a look?
I see your situation in 3 parts. The web server, meaning the mostly static part of your "shop front". For that even a small VPS is easily good enough but you probably want the static parts delivered through a CDN both for customer speed experience and good availability. I guess that even some basic free service is good enough. Then the file delivery engine. For that good connectivity is important but location is not, plus RAM is desirable to allow for good OS caching. Those two parts can be on one server preferably in London as I said. Finally a backup server. After all those files are your "product".
And yes, as that solution is quite cheap you may want to have a secondary main server but there are 2 buts: (1) there should be only 1 with a web shop or other highly dynamic content. Reason: having the web shop running on multiple servers will open a can of worms and make the whole thing considerably more complex and expensive. (2) Both should serve all files.
For the first two parts a 2 vCores, 1 or 2 GB mem., 500 GB SSD with option for more, shared 1Gb/s port with 200Mb/s guaranteed and 1TB traffic with reasonably priced additional traffic server should be plenty good enough. For the backup server I'd suggest to start with a 1 TB storage server right away. The VPS can be small but I'd advise not to go for the cheapest one.
Regarding your request for a recommendation I have to say that my knowledge of the provider market is a bit limited but based on both my own experience and what I've heard from others @Clouvider or one of his resellers seems to be an excellent choice in London. That's where I personally would go to. Regarding the storage server you can afford to be less picky and it might be a good idea to chose another good location like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Paris.
Finally some reasons for my advice: About 250k visits per month is small fries that's just about 1 visit every 10 seconds. So even a very small server can handle that. I myself have VPS with just 1 vCore and 256 MB mem. handling quite a bit more load.
Your "product" seems to be files of medium size between a couple of MB up to a couple hundred MB and you want those to be delivered quickly for a good customer experience hence I suggest an SSD and a generous but reasonable amount of memory. Raid would be nice but not absolutely necessary particularly not with a good provider. As SSDs arent cheap you want to look for a VPS with some disk reserves plus a provider that can and is willing to add a second SSD later on if needed.
Hope I could help. Feel free to contact me by PM if needed.
Agree with @jsg, 350k views per month could be easily handled by small VPS, 1 vCore with 256MB RAM.
I would go with one small VPS and two storage VPS. Each storage VPS synced with rsync, and you could backup the eCommerce VPS to both storage VPSes.
This would allow if any case eCommerce VPS down, you will have two VPSes ready for live.
So the topology will be like this:
PS: edited because my comment was accidentally submitted by pressing tab and spacebar.
Thank you guys for sharing your ideas with me.
Any good VPS storage provider? The best with 250Mbit/s link or 1Gbit?
I was thinking about CDN too, but I am not sure if I can implement it e.g BunnyCDN.
Anyway I want to server URL to customers with some security e.g. a file can be downloaded by customer only 3 times.
You can use the CDN to serve static pages - things like file listings, descriptions, images.
This is often done by giving static content a separate domain like - static.yourdomain.com
what about bigger files like 1GB?
I am looking for some CDN or good network with some security mechanisms.
Providers like BunnyCDN offer affordable cloud storage. I would pay someone to host the files for me instead of using a VPS.
Reasons:
a) Lower management overhead
b) Better scalability
Regarding VPS providers in London, I can recommend VMHaus.
@adamus007p you could take a look at this https://support.bunnycdn.com/hc/en-us/articles/208517745-How-to-set-up-CDN-Url-Token-Authentication it might be of use if you want to limit the amount of downloads.
You could talk with BunnyCDN to see if they can help you more.
this logic should coded in your script.
1 VPS for DB + web server (ex Hetzner CX21)
1 or more VPS for serving download (any provider) (ex buyvm, hosthatch)
on my current setup for news site 500k view/m (wordpress based). Linode 4GB had more that enough room to grow.
I am more then thankful for you all.
@FHR that's thanks for this forum I have discover bunnyCDN, which have similar price for storage object but this is a CDN, so I don't care about management.
a and b that's right.
@Jord thank you for the link. I will contact with them.
@Sibaper, thank you. I see that for my cast 4GB will be more then enough.
That's why I am thinking for fast small VPS and some addiction storage or CDN.
Any experience with buyvm, hosthatch?
I was thinking about netcup VPS + addictaional storage or CDN or
Arubacloud +addictaional storage or CDN.
had vps with buyvm and hosthatch. both excelent
I'm not sure that the benefit would balance the problems created like e.g. higher complexity, particularly when considering that his shop front almost certainly is dynamic and DB linked.
The kind of questions OP asks suggest that the simplest solution that does all he needs would be preferable.
@adamus007p
Plenty feedback and suggestions for you and much to try out. You won't need my advice anymore, Happy sailing.
At the moment I see different possibilities, I need to choose test it and move a shop.
but night is long 
Definitely now there is a lot to try
Hello guys, just a quick question.
Do you know any CDN cheap provider who offer a download number limitation?
I see that there are tokens - expiry date, but I don't see limit of download.
I have send email to bunnyCDN to double check it.
In worst case I need to make my own CDN like @r00t4bl3 wrote.