Hello VPS (Virtual Private Server)
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006As I mentioned eariler, my blog site has out-grown my cheap “shared” hosting account. WP-Cache (suggested by Johnny) helped a little but did not solve my problems. So, I decided to switch to a Vitrual Private Server at Tektonic and run my own server on Fedora. It is only slightly more expensive than mass hosting ($14/mo for 256MB dedicated RAM and $28/mo for 512MB). The service seems good so far. Let’s hope it stays this way! 
With VPS, I can finally run JBoss in my hosting account! The only caveat is that JBoss with all the EJB3 / Seam goodies is a real memory hog when starting up — you do need 512 MB RAM. But once it starts up, the memory use is stable (no memory leak in Seam applications thanks to better session state management!) and the CPU load is in lower single digit even I hit the app hard.
With VPS, I also get to run my own mail servers and MySQL database server. It has been a couple of years since I last ran a Linux server. So, it takes some time to get everything working properly. But once it is set up, it runs a lot faster and smoother than the mass hosting provider.
Of course, that also means I now have to secure my server and keep software updated. Yum automatic update is great for that. However, the VPS host cannot install “Red Hat “Unfakeable” Linux” on my VPS even if I have a license from Red Hat. Only if I can get a Red Hat Network subscription with the VPS …