Can shared Host/MySQl application support load of 500 users accessing the site at the same time

Question

I have a new project and need some advice about managing the application’s load.

The application will have over 500 users with about 70% of them logging on between 5 & 7pm each night. The users will pull down about 50 records, update the records and the save the changes back to the data base. Estimate each record will be updated in about a minute and half. The data is all text, no images.

The application will be built in PHP on top of a MySql community edition data base, hosted at Dreamhost.

My question can a site supported on shared hosting company support this kind of traffic? How about MySql ? I know this is a big question but any advice about the app’s architecture ?

Thanks for your advice.

Answer 1

MySql should handle it just fine. I might be a bit worried about the shared hosting setup though. Most shared hosting setups have very restrictive policies on CPU utilization that you might run into.

Rather than letting your app drag down the performance of the server, they will often shut down your app for a few minutes if you exceed a certain CPU utilization threshold over some period of time. Of course they don't advertise what those limits are, but I've often run into this issue with various shared hosting accounts.

You might be better off going with a cheap VPS type setup. That will (generally) get you a dedicated CPU and no artificial limits. Your server might slow down a bit under heavy load, but at least they won't cut your site off entirely.