Hosting a large number of virtual roots
Alan Dickman
of thousands) of stores . We were thinking of defining virual roots with the
following simple structure:
http://MasterSite/Store1,
http://MasterSite/Store2,
...
http://MasterSite/StoreN
Does anyone know what the practical limit is for virtual roots on a single
IIS server? (I've heard that performance degrades on IIS 4 after about
300-400 virtual roots. Is this true? How much better is it with IIS 5?)
Suppose we configured a large number of dedicated domains on a single server
using Host Headers (not unique IP addresses): http://Store1.MasterSite.com,
http://Store2.MasterSite.com, ... http://StoreN.MasterSite.com
Does performance tank after a certain number?
How would you create each of these if there were 50,000 of them?
Can you script the generation of these sites?
Does any of this change dramatically between NT4 and Windows 2000 (should we
go to Win2000 to increase the number?
A quick response earns you .... my graditude!
Mark Myszak
as http://mysite.myurl.com
host headers is the key HUH? can you tell me where to find the documention
on configureing the header?
Mark Myszak
"Alan Dickman" <ala...@home.com> wrote in message
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Tom Kaminski
Mark Myszak <ad...@winanewcar.com> wrote in message
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Tom A
Right click on the website and go to properties. Now go to the Web Site
tab. Click on advanced. Lets say that the IP of the server is
201.246.53.12. And you want this website to answer to http://site1.mall.com
Click add and then for the IP enter 201.246.53.12. For the Header, enter
"site1.mall.com". For the port, enter 80 since all browsers make HTTP
requests on port 80. You can create as many identies as you want for this
site. So if you want it to answer to http://201.246.53.12:66/ you would
click add again and this time change the header to nothing and the port to
66. You may host multiple sites off of one IP (virtual hosting) either by
changing the port or the header name for each entry. Next make edit your
DNS server entries for mall.com to point to the IP of the server. The line
will look something like "site1 IN A 201.246.53.12". If all subdomains
point to the same server then you can use "* IN A 201.246.53.12".
Now, virtual hosting.... things to keep in mind. Older browsers will not
answer to virtually hosted sites. Instead they will see a list of all sites
on the server and will be able to pick one. Make sure "Index this site" is
checked in the site properties pages to make them appear in this default NT
list. Next, note that many system admins do not update their DNS very
often. Having said all that, chances are that at any time, around 15-25% of
the web will not resolve to your sub-domains. So it is probably best to
offer both sub-domains and relative directories to your users. Performance
wise, virtual roots do not drag down a server that much. As long as the DNS
servers for the domain are speedy, you shouldn't run into much problems. NT
server 4 holds up pretty well with 450 virtuals, so imagine that Win2k could
only handle them better.
Creation of these websites can be scripted but is some fairly advanced
programming, but nothing I haven't done before. Contact me for proposals
and or contract inquiries...
Tom