3 Steps To Scale VPS aka Upgrades

It’s not difficult to know when to scale or upgrade virtual servers. But it’s not often that businesses make a practice of reviewing their strategy. This simple process could save you thousands of dollars per year and numerous headaches.

I’ve been honored to listen to hundreds of sincere business owners and developers describe their hopes to deliver the best experience to their users. During a VPS consultation we usually cover basic strategy like determining when to scale or upgrade. This should be an easy conversation. It is sometimes; but why not every time?

Differing objectives & ideas. There’s often not one single “right” answer.

It is important to have insight from all angles. Business owners know that when usage grows, cash flow will likely increase. Likewise developers know their application may need more horsepower or a change in implementation. Both are excited with the thought.

With three questions, you can be better prepared for the next phase of growth.

3 Questions to Demystify When to Scale VPS

1. Define Triggers: At what N (% Ram, % CPU, % Disk space) should we revisit our hosting strategy?

• We often get asked about server performance so we built usage reporting right into our Windows Control Panel for Windows VPS Hosting, but these metrics are also available with simple command line tools in Linux and cPanel for cPanel VPS.

2. Determine Goals: When a limit is reached, what is our aim? Deciding what matters gives you the opportunity to identify successful changes. A few examples:

• Our home page (or whatever page is important) should respond within N ms.
• We feel best when average server usage is between N% and N% [RAM, CPU, DISK].
• Our budget is $N.

3. Decide on Next Best Steps: What options should we consider? It’s often most cost effective to upgrade a single resource vs adding additional servers. We also highly suggest a CDN to reduce the load on your web-server when applicable.

These questions will not resolve every upgrade or scalability question. But can be used as a framework to help proactively identify when change is necessary and avoid paying for resources that are not needed when you’re just starting out.

Add a reminder to your calendar 2-4 times per year or more to review them.

If you would like to discuss your options with us, schedule a time to speak with our VPS Hosting team about your big plans – we love to help.

Thanks to Daniel G. for the image used in this post.

Categories: Hosting