November 9, 2017 at 14:52Infobox Hosting Review
Infobox Engineering Team Launches New High-Performance Website Hosting :
In this article:
Over the long years of hosting more than 300,000 customers, we have tried several different architectures:
Both schemes add overhead when processing HTTP requests to sites. Performance is particularly affected by network latency, leading to a decrease in the speed of client sites.
In the new hosting, client sites and the database are located on the same physical server without adding network overhead. Scaling is done by adding physical hosts, but each hosted client site is guaranteed to be located on a single server completely, which ensures the highest possible speed.
On host servers, we use enterprise-level SSDs with a throughput of 12Gb / s, which allows us to process requests to client sites even faster than on regular 6Gb / s SSDs. Especially this acceleration is felt when working with databases.
According to our tests, random recording on these discs is up to 2 times faster than 6Gb / s SSD and hundreds of times faster than regular HDD disks.
The processor will no longer be a narrow neck for your site - the high frequency of the cores significantly speeds up the execution of scripts and database queries.
We rewrote the phpredis module and now we provide all clients with the opportunity to safely work with sessions without blocking, redis is available at all rates at no extra cost.
A company has written and deployed a system for monitoring website performance on competitor platforms. Monitoring measures CPU / FS / MYSQL and average site loading speed. We follow the main competitors and provide really “The fastest” php hosting.
Web servers use the latest version of CloudLinux; client resources are limited using LVE technology. The essence of the restrictions is not to force the client to switch to VPS with a heavy load, but to protect clients from a significant increase in the consumption of resources of neighboring sites. Now, all sites have a 2GB RAM limit (actual memory consumption) and 500% CPU (five physical server cores).
To increase uptime, we created a host reservation system. If the host serving the hosting is unavailable, requests to sites are transferred to the backup hardware, files and the base on which are synchronized with the battle server. Thus, it is almost impossible to lose client sites in case of iron failures. Unavailability time during an iron breakdown of a combat server in the worst case is up to 20 minutes. Switching does not occur automatically to exclude the possibility of file loss between synchronizations; the decision to switch is made by the service administrator.
All client site data is backed up daily to backup servers. Convenient tools for recovering sites and databases from created copies are available in the control panel. Also, without leaving the control panel, you can configure backup to any remote FTP server.
In the updated Linux hosting there is only one tariff - 99 rubles per month for the first site and 49 rubles per month for each additional one. We have already included the maximum possible discount for the equipment used in the monthly fee. The customer can purchase exactly as many sites as necessary, without overpaying for excess. The tariff includes:
Additional sites, disk space and IP addresses can be added at any time without problems from the control panel.
Key features:
Available payment methods:
For the test, a real deployed site on Joomla with content was used. The stability was tested up to 200 requests per second at a time. You can see the response time distribution below ( Yandex.Tank ):
The response time of the site stably stays between 20 ms and 30 ms, the site is not inaccessible.
We hope that next-generation hosting from Infobox will allow your site to work faster, and you - earn more.
If you are developing sites - welcome to our affiliate program - earn 40% of each payment for hosting your customers. At the same time, customers pay at the same market prices without extra charges and overpayments.
We are waiting for your feedback at partners@infobox.ru .
Good luck!
- Redesigned and simplified hosting architecture, reducing website delays
- used the latest servers with high-frequency processors up to 3.7 GHz and the fastest SAS SSD 12Gbit / s
- deployed a completely new hosting control panel with Plesk technologies
- Introduced a process of continuous monitoring of competing solutions to provide consistently better quality services.
In this article:
- we’ll take a deeper look at what has changed (almost everything): architecture, hardware, software optimizations, fault tolerance, a new panel, a new single tariff for 99 rubles.
- let's show an example of how to deploy a site (hidden in a spoiler for those who are interested)
- We’ll shoot Yandex.Tank on a real site on a hosting as a load test.
New Hosting Architecture
Over the long years of hosting more than 300,000 customers, we have tried several different architectures:
- Web servers with shared databases (1 database server to multiple web servers)
- Cluster solution (network storages, web nodes processing requests and balancers in front of them)
Both schemes add overhead when processing HTTP requests to sites. Performance is particularly affected by network latency, leading to a decrease in the speed of client sites.
In the new hosting, client sites and the database are located on the same physical server without adding network overhead. Scaling is done by adding physical hosts, but each hosted client site is guaranteed to be located on a single server completely, which ensures the highest possible speed.
Performance
12GB / s SSD
On host servers, we use enterprise-level SSDs with a throughput of 12Gb / s, which allows us to process requests to client sites even faster than on regular 6Gb / s SSDs. Especially this acceleration is felt when working with databases.
According to our tests, random recording on these discs is up to 2 times faster than 6Gb / s SSD and hundreds of times faster than regular HDD disks.
High Frequency Processors 3.4 GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.7 GHz)
The processor will no longer be a narrow neck for your site - the high frequency of the cores significantly speeds up the execution of scripts and database queries.
Work with php redis sessions without locks
We rewrote the phpredis module and now we provide all clients with the opportunity to safely work with sessions without blocking, redis is available at all rates at no extra cost.
Continuous performance comparison with competitors
A company has written and deployed a system for monitoring website performance on competitor platforms. Monitoring measures CPU / FS / MYSQL and average site loading speed. We follow the main competitors and provide really “The fastest” php hosting.
Isolation from other users
Web servers use the latest version of CloudLinux; client resources are limited using LVE technology. The essence of the restrictions is not to force the client to switch to VPS with a heavy load, but to protect clients from a significant increase in the consumption of resources of neighboring sites. Now, all sites have a 2GB RAM limit (actual memory consumption) and 500% CPU (five physical server cores).
Reliability
Disaster recovery
To increase uptime, we created a host reservation system. If the host serving the hosting is unavailable, requests to sites are transferred to the backup hardware, files and the base on which are synchronized with the battle server. Thus, it is almost impossible to lose client sites in case of iron failures. Unavailability time during an iron breakdown of a combat server in the worst case is up to 20 minutes. Switching does not occur automatically to exclude the possibility of file loss between synchronizations; the decision to switch is made by the service administrator.
Backup
All client site data is backed up daily to backup servers. Convenient tools for recovering sites and databases from created copies are available in the control panel. Also, without leaving the control panel, you can configure backup to any remote FTP server.
Opportunities
In the updated Linux hosting there is only one tariff - 99 rubles per month for the first site and 49 rubles per month for each additional one. We have already included the maximum possible discount for the equipment used in the monthly fee. The customer can purchase exactly as many sites as necessary, without overpaying for excess. The tariff includes:
- 1 site / 1 database / FTP access
- 5 GB SSD 12GB / s
- Autoinstaller 200+ CMS
- Free SSL certificate (Lets Encrypt of course)
- Backup at no extra charge.
- 24/7 support
Additional sites, disk space and IP addresses can be added at any time without problems from the control panel.
Key features:
- The new modern CCPv2 service control panel, rewritten in javascript, allowing you to work with the service without reading documentation. In the future, other Infobox services will be added to this panel.
- Full Plesk inside without additional license fees with the familiar control panel
- Ability to select the server operating mode: apache + fastcgi, nginx + php-fpm, apache + fpm, the ability to upload statics via nginx
- Latest stable php, perl and python versions
- Php accelerator
- Ability to view logs in real time
- SSH and FTP access to your files
- File manager with visual code editor
- Installing CMS in one click (all popular and not very engines)
- Free certificate for any domain (Let`s-Encrypt)
- HTTP / 2.0 protocol support
- Storing innodb database tables in Barracuda format
- IPv6 Support
- Ability to deploy from Git
Available payment methods:
- bank account
- by card
- Yandex money
- Webmoney
- QIWI Wallet
Overview of the order and payment process
By clicking on the “Order” button , the user enters a new order form, which we tried to make as simple as possible for quick registration:
Indicate the required number of sites, the discount is applied automatically.
When choosing payment for the year, we give the domain in the RU zone. Pay for more years - get more domains for free.
When you enter Last Name and First Name, the form prompts popular ones, which allows you to speed up the input.
After filling in the data and setting the checkmark for consent with the processing of the PD and the contract, click "Place an order".
An e-mail will be sent to you with access to the control panel and an invoice for payment.
Enter the control panel https://panel.infobox.ru with the access data received in the letter.
The large orange box “Order requires payment” reminds us that it would be good to pay for an order. Click on it.
Now click "Pay for the order."
Select the appropriate method and click "Pay."
After entering the card data and confirming, payment is made and the service becomes active.
You can go to the main page by clicking on the "house" in the upper left corner of the control panel.
Order process
By clicking on the “Order” button , the user enters a new order form, which we tried to make as simple as possible for quick registration:
Indicate the required number of sites, the discount is applied automatically.
When choosing payment for the year, we give the domain in the RU zone. Pay for more years - get more domains for free.
When you enter Last Name and First Name, the form prompts popular ones, which allows you to speed up the input.
After filling in the data and setting the checkmark for consent with the processing of the PD and the contract, click "Place an order".
An e-mail will be sent to you with access to the control panel and an invoice for payment.
Hosting payment
Enter the control panel https://panel.infobox.ru with the access data received in the letter.
The large orange box “Order requires payment” reminds us that it would be good to pay for an order. Click on it.
Now click "Pay for the order."
Select the appropriate method and click "Pay."
After entering the card data and confirming, payment is made and the service becomes active.
You can go to the main page by clicking on the "house" in the upper left corner of the control panel.
How to deploy a site
Enter the control panel with the data received by mail after registration. Each connected service is displayed in a separate tile + individual tiles are rendered for the most important operations: user management, payment. There is also the possibility of switching to the classic Infobox control panel using the “Other Services” tile (which allows you to make the transition to a new panel gradually). Using the new control panel usually does not require prior training. Want to add a user - click on the appropriate tile and add. If you want to replenish the balance, click on “Accounts” and “Top up”.
The Web Sites section is our new generation of hosting. Click "Add New Website" to host the site.
If you need to add resources to the service, you can do this by clicking “Add more resources”.
Then click OK and Next.
Indicate the name of the site and click "Next."
In this step, you can transfer or register a new domain. In our example, we simply delegate the existing domain to the Infobox NS servers.
The site has been successfully added.
To see the NS – servers that need to be specified in the domain settings at the registrar, click “Domains”. Then click on the added domain.
As we see, it is necessary to register the following NS with the registrar:
In case you ordered a domain from Infobox - NS are registered automatically.
After updating NS servers (it may take several hours) the site will open by domain name with a default page.
If you have any questions or need help, on the main page of the control panel, click “Other Services” -> “Support” -> “Requests”.
After adding a site and delegating / registering / transferring a domain, it appears in the "Websites" section. By clicking on the site tile itself, a simplified hosting management interface becomes available to you. The “Operations” section on the tile is what you can do quickly right from the tile.
Our hosting service has 2 interfaces: simplified for fast operations:
Simplified interface - actually links to the most commonly used operations in Plesk.
A full Plesk management interface is also available in the Other Tools section.
Thus, if you have ever used Plesk, you already know how to work with our new hosting.
Let's add a database for our site. To do this, click "Databases" -> "Add Database".
Specify the database parameters and click OK.
Database successfully created.
The service includes free site migration. If you do not want to transfer the site yourself, our specialists will do it. Just write to us in the section “Other Services” -> “Support” -> “Requests” and we will transfer your site at a time convenient for you.
In fact, the transfer consists of 3 steps: transferring the site files, transferring the database and prescribing the configuration for the site. After that, you can switch the DNS.
The transfer of site files is performed from the “Importing a site” section on the main page of the control panel.
The database is loaded using the backup import or in the familiar interface of PHPMyAdmin.
The site configuration is conveniently changed from the file manager editor:
We’ll go to the “Applications” section, select the one you need and click “Install”. If necessary, you can select a specific version of the product to install.
Specify the CMS installation parameters and click "Install."
CMS has been successfully installed.
How to deploy a site
Enter the control panel with the data received by mail after registration. Each connected service is displayed in a separate tile + individual tiles are rendered for the most important operations: user management, payment. There is also the possibility of switching to the classic Infobox control panel using the “Other Services” tile (which allows you to make the transition to a new panel gradually). Using the new control panel usually does not require prior training. Want to add a user - click on the appropriate tile and add. If you want to replenish the balance, click on “Accounts” and “Top up”.
The Web Sites section is our new generation of hosting. Click "Add New Website" to host the site.
If you need to add resources to the service, you can do this by clicking “Add more resources”.
Then click OK and Next.
Indicate the name of the site and click "Next."
In this step, you can transfer or register a new domain. In our example, we simply delegate the existing domain to the Infobox NS servers.
The site has been successfully added.
To see the NS – servers that need to be specified in the domain settings at the registrar, click “Domains”. Then click on the added domain.
As we see, it is necessary to register the following NS with the registrar:
- ns2.pa.infobox.ru
- ns1.pa.infobox.ru
In case you ordered a domain from Infobox - NS are registered automatically.
After updating NS servers (it may take several hours) the site will open by domain name with a default page.
If you have any questions or need help, on the main page of the control panel, click “Other Services” -> “Support” -> “Requests”.
After adding a site and delegating / registering / transferring a domain, it appears in the "Websites" section. By clicking on the site tile itself, a simplified hosting management interface becomes available to you. The “Operations” section on the tile is what you can do quickly right from the tile.
Hosting Management: Simplified Interface and Plesk
Our hosting service has 2 interfaces: simplified for fast operations:
Simplified interface - actually links to the most commonly used operations in Plesk.
A full Plesk management interface is also available in the Other Tools section.
Thus, if you have ever used Plesk, you already know how to work with our new hosting.
Let's add a database for our site. To do this, click "Databases" -> "Add Database".
Specify the database parameters and click OK.
Database successfully created.
Migrate an existing site
The service includes free site migration. If you do not want to transfer the site yourself, our specialists will do it. Just write to us in the section “Other Services” -> “Support” -> “Requests” and we will transfer your site at a time convenient for you.
In fact, the transfer consists of 3 steps: transferring the site files, transferring the database and prescribing the configuration for the site. After that, you can switch the DNS.
The transfer of site files is performed from the “Importing a site” section on the main page of the control panel.
The database is loaded using the backup import or in the familiar interface of PHPMyAdmin.
The site configuration is conveniently changed from the file manager editor:
We are developing a new site
We’ll go to the “Applications” section, select the one you need and click “Install”. If necessary, you can select a specific version of the product to install.
Specify the CMS installation parameters and click "Install."
CMS has been successfully installed.
Stress Testing
For the test, a real deployed site on Joomla with content was used. The stability was tested up to 200 requests per second at a time. You can see the response time distribution below ( Yandex.Tank ):
The response time of the site stably stays between 20 ms and 30 ms, the site is not inaccessible.
Conclusion
We hope that next-generation hosting from Infobox will allow your site to work faster, and you - earn more.
If you are developing sites - welcome to our affiliate program - earn 40% of each payment for hosting your customers. At the same time, customers pay at the same market prices without extra charges and overpayments.
We are waiting for your feedback at partners@infobox.ru .
Good luck!