nuccca,

That is not exactly how clustering works. Clustering is an advanced server configuration and normally is never going to be a configuration offered for shared hosting unless you’re the primary owner or leaser of those servers used in the cluster configuration and wish to not only host your own site but others as well. It is also a very advanced configuration used for sites with high traffic.

Let me see if I can put my two cents in on what kind of server configuration people may want see more to look at. I will put these in order from good to best.

Shared Hosting with Shared IP:
This is the best solution if you’re starting your site out as a hobby and looking to keep cost way down. Very inexpensive, but you are subject to performance issues based on demand on server as well as security risks are increased.

Shared Hosting with dedicated IP:
Same as above accept you have a dedicated IP address that can have advantages for SEO and many other things. If you’re not sure what advantages these are don’t worry about the dedicated IP address. There is no performance difference good or bad with dedicated IP. This is also a good way to go for the newbie. Normally a dedicated IP is only a couple dollars more per month.

VPS hosting:
Here you get many of the advantages of having a dedicated server without the extra cost. The server is much more secure than shared hosting. If you are a serious about starting up a dolphin portal for profit and don’t mind spending more than shared hosting this is the way to start out. You can always grow into a dedicated server easily once your site has enough traffic to justify. The VPS hosting solution is also going to provide better consistent performance as most good hosting providers do not over subscribe these kinds of servers and guarantee a certain amount of processor usage as well as available memory. In my opinion this is the best place for most people to start that plan on growing their site.

Dedicated Server:
Without a doubt the an upgrade from VPS hosting and guaranteed performance as nobody else is using that server but you. Much more costly then a VPS solution but also even more secure and flexible. This is the route I would take once your site going well and making some money.

Clustered Servers:
This is the same as having a dedicated server but in this case you would have as many dedicated servers as your site demands. All the advantages of the dedicated server but adds enormous scalability to your site. Clustering is for sites that have a lot of traffic. When you get to this point your normally not overly worried about the extra cost for the servers. Each time your site outgrows the performance of how many servers you have in the pool. You just simply add another server to the cluster to allow additional requests to keep up with the demand.
Many times on a high traffic site you could click on one page and request will be fulfilled by say web server 1 and the very next request will be fulfilled by say web server 2 depending on how the cluster is configured. In our case on some of our high traffic sites we have a piece of text in the footer of the site that identifies what the server name is for example mywebserver1 or mywebserver2 so when we are examining how the site is running we also know what server we are on at any given time. We have servers we own and servers we lease in multiple locations through the US for different projects. With the cluster configuration cost is typically very little concern.

Keep in mind with the proper planning you can start out with any of these configurations and work your way up as your community and profits grow.

Best of luck,
Zorro…………
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