scaling for newbies

[berlin]

well I'm not even a programmer, so please bare with me. let's say I own a myspace clone and my server is bogged down by heavy traffic. So what's next? I know I can place mysql on a separate server, but what if that's not enough? can i split mysql? Can I get another server to run just the photogallery of a myspace clone? will that entail rewriting the entire script? what if the image gallery or myql, already spread on 3 servers, just keeps growing? when is having multiple instances better than just adding servers?

[MattEvans]

If you code with the intention of splitting functions accross servers, you won't find it as difficult to split a site... Spreading things out adds a security risk unless you're carefull, but somethings don't matter so much...

Images on a separate server seems quite nice, maybe even cacheable pages on another server could work... Personally I'd try to keep script and database on the same server. Otherwise, you might lose any speed benefit you could gain because one server has to "call" the other to get hold of information...

If you own your equipment, you can run "script elements" as services to minimize the time a single request cycle takes... If you don't own your own equipment, you can usually solve alot of speed and load problems by optimizing code and caching...

If space is your biggest issue; buy more. If memory is your biggest issue; buy more. If speed is your biggest issue; upgrade. If your site is really huge, you could get a dedicated custom system: lots of highspec computers, all on a local network, and all servers.

[berlin]

Hey thanks Matt. I was just reading about Digg. They started off with 1 server and now they have 103.