HELP PLSE! Killing server!

Sticking a web site in it's own application is often better because it has it's own memory, so if another site has some really bad coding that crashes the application pool then often it won't effect the other sites running on the server.

However, doing things this way uses allot more memory, with the average ASP, or ASP.NET site using around 80Mb to 200MB of server memory.

As server memory costs around $250 USD for 1Gig you will only usually find this level of service with more expensive web hosts as it eats allot of server memory and so is not a cheap way of doing it.

What most shared web hosts will do is lump web sites together so they share application pools, this lowers the overall costs as the drivers only need to be loaded into memory once for all the sites in that application pool, so you can have say 50 sites all using 1 application pool which is using 200MB.

If you want this level of service with your site running in it's own application pool, then the costs is much higher, to cover the costs of all the extra memory needed on the server.

The web host you are using is trying to give this service at a very cheap price, so what they are doing is limiting the amount of memory allocation you have on the server. This then allows them to advertise large bandwidth resources etc. as it gets the customers to bite, but then the low memory usage (probably mentioned in the small print) allows them to  kick off all those users who have more popular sites and using dynamic applications.

This then allows them to keep the nice customers who use very little resources packing lots of them on the server. A web hosts dream, lost of low resource using sites with very little server problems = maximum profits and very happy customers (as long as you have a site which doesn't use many resources).

If you have smaller sites with a few dynamic ASP, and ASP.NET pages then this host will be ideal for your needs and should not have many problems hosting with them. But if you have a popular site or want to run forum, shopping cart, CMS, etc. software, then this web host is not the one for you.


Edited by -boRg- - 30 July 2007 at 4:00pm

Well, the SQL errors stopped after they rebooted the host server.
We've seen our host boot the server we're on at least 3 times in the last month.
Yesterday, I had to re-login at least 6 times and session info was lost a lot.
so I contacted them again, and go this very nice detailed response!

(BTW - what does the thread number mean in this case??)

Hello Bill,

I monitored you resource usage for about a half hour and in that time I only saw
your worker process recycle twice due to hitting the memory limit in place. I also
checked the number of threads for your worker process and your site by far had the
most activity on the entire server for the time I was monitoring your resource usage.
I will have to put some scripts in place to monitor the total thread count for the
day but I suspect that your site is the most heavily visited on the server. At one
point your worker process was handling over 115 threads, at which point your worker
process recycled due to reaching the memory limit. 

Here are the recycle events from the system log:

A worker process with process id of '9260' serving application pool
'theamcforum.com(domain)(pool)' has requested a recycle because it reached its
private bytes memory limit. 12:52:53pm

A worker process with process id of '3372' serving application pool
'theamcforum.com(domain)(pool)' has requested a recycle because it reached its
private bytes memory limit. 12:40:52pm

A worker process with process id of '7452' serving application pool
'theamcforum.com(domain)(pool)' has requested a recycle because it reached its
private bytes memory limit. 11:51:47am

As you can see from the log data the only times there is a reset is due to the
memory limit in place.

I checked for other heavy resource users on the server and there simply are not any
that have a high enough resource usage to cause a problem as the current memory load
on the server is only about 60% which is well within normal operations for a web
server. 

Based off of my observations from monitoring your site resource usage and the number
of threads your worker process is raising I would really suggest looking into a
dedicated server, even the entry level one as it would provide you with the greatest
flexibility for your site. 

--
Best Regards, 
Bill King
System Admin Team - Windows and Linux Junior System Administrator I

Yeah, TWO recycles in half an hour! Wow. Looks like over a two hour time, it resets several times.
We can't afford a dedicated server - being funded strictly by the 6 moderators and a few paltry donations, however, we ARE in the middle of discussions about a move - and your hosting business is on the top of our "to look at" list if we determine we can afford it.
I wanted you to see exact stats and logs for comment, and to learn more, and to see if your server can support us - say, the middle-of-the-road service.
I have to suspect that the SQL errors we got earlier were due to the server running out of resources, and the sessions constantly get reset (assuming that's what the logs pointed to)
We can probably afford $16 US a month, and I'm comfortable with the bandwidth but if we allow members to post photos of their cars, I really fear we'll run short of storage - 800 meg is NOTHING at all to a site that allows pictures of member's cars and restoration projects. We'd blow that away after a few months. (Especially with scans of original factory documents, dealer letters, etc that are of museum quality and quite rare.)
We're in the middle of talks, and depending on what we can afford - and if they'll let us out of our hosting deal (unfortunately, we signed up with them for TWO years to save money)


Edited by billd3 - 23 August 2007 at 1:06pm