Drupal Hosting Mike Hostetler A Mountain Top, LLC @mikehostetler

A few assumptions ...

Assumption #1: Drupal needs hosting

Assumption #2: Not all hosting is created equal

Assumption #3: Not all Drupal needs the same hosting

This creates choices

A choice for you, as the Drupal expert

A choice for your client

How do I decide?

How do I help my client decide?

Ask the Drupal Spaceman

Just Kidding

Not Really ...

Decision #1 Decide what business you are in?

Are you a designer?

Are you a developer?

Do you want to get phone calls at 2am?

You probably don't

Hosting is a completely different business

Redirect Hosting FAIL Anger

Answer #1: Be the person who can call and yell at the hosting company on behalf of your client

Decision #2: Estimate the level of resources your site needs

Estimate your users

Estimate your nodes

Are you hosting or embedding Rich Media?

Estimate your traffic, in simultaneous users

Answer #2: Planning and projecting your resources is critical to choosing your hosting vendor

Decision #3: Choose the type of hosting & the vendor

There are 4 major types of hosting

Shared Hosting

Virtual Private Servers

Dedicated Single-Server

Dedicated Multi-Server

TIP: Google cares about hosting

TIP: You probably need less then you think ...

TIP: Shared hosting is like replacing a Ferrari's engine with a Hamster Wheel

TIP: Before choosing a vendor, submit a support ticket and time the response

How do I find a vendor?

http://drupal.org/hosting

Ask people at a Drupal Meetup or Camp

Decision #3: Choose the level of Drupal performance tuning

After the site is built ...

Administer -> Site Configuration -> Performance

Caching Mode: Normal

Advanced Caching: http://drupal.org/node/97347

Enable Page Compression

Enable Block Cache (if appropriate)

Optimize CSS Files

DO NOT Optimize Javascript Files

Test with Firebug and Yslow http://getfirebug.com http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow

Server Side Optimizations

APC – Alternative PHP Cache

APC – Alternative PHP Cache

Memcached

Decision #4 Plan how to keep your hosting company accountable

Netcraft Uptime Survey http://uptime.netcraft.com

Netcraft Uptime Survey http://uptime.netcraft.com

Pingdom http://pingdom.com

Many other tools ...

Thank You

Mike Hostetler A Mountain Top, LLC @mikehostetler http://amountaintop.com