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I currently have 2 Debian servers (VPS with 4 GB memory) and am hosting a variety of websites of differing importance: some are production sites, while others are demo/staging/test sites. Approximately 15-20 websites, one of which will have a fair amount of traffic soon.

For the moment, I have my production sites deployed on one server and demo/staging/test sites on another. Both servers run Apache and MySQL.

I have read about and understand most of the benefits of separating the database (MySQL) from the web server (Apache, but probably going to switch to nginx). I have no performance problems at the moment, but need to move things around from one server to another and was wondering if it was a good time to reorganise the data on both servers. For the moment I do not have the money to add extra servers in the mix.

My question: Is it better to put all my websites on one of the two servers and their corresponding databases on the other, given that they are split between production and demo/staging/test applications, or would I be better off keeping the separation between production and non production applications (considering security/performance factors)?

Ideally, I would move all non production applications to a third server but for the moment its a no go.

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Personally I would be inclined to leave the installation as it is. (1 Production server & 1 Testing/demo/staging server). I can't see any advantages by changing it. And I don't see any disadvantages in leaving it untouched. You plan a third server which will force you to change the installation anyway. If DB performance is a concern, think about clustering MySQL on both servers. A simple master / slave setup work do the trick. That way you can use one or both node(s) for all select queries & the other for all edit (insert, update, etc.) queries. That way dividing the load.

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Although an answer has been accepted here, I strongly disgaree that it's the right way to go.

Unless you have complex deployment and/or capacity testing requirements, then why are you paying for a server to host your non-production stuff? All you need is a local VM (it's trivial to implement bandwadth, latency and packet loss on a proxy).

Even VPs go down. If you want high availability then both systems should be symmetrical. Suppose you have a probability of failure of a node at 0.01%. Then the probability of losing your service as it stands is 0.01%. Split the service vertically (http and mysql) then your probability of a complete loss of service is 0.01+0.01% - double what it was. OTOH with a symmetrical config the probability of a complete loss of service is 0.01%*0.01% = 0.0000001% and you get the benefits of more performance and more capacity and an easy way to implement A/B testing.

How you implement mysql clustering and balancing of traffic is a more complex question - but can be done without adding extra software/hardware.

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  • Hello symcbean. Interesting point. You obviously know your stuff. Thanks for the comment.
    – Eamonn Travers
    Jan 13, 2015 at 9:43

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