instasaint Posted September 10, 2010 Posted September 10, 2010 I have a bunch of general questions about OsCommerce. I am hoping some experienced developers would be able to shed some light on them. Scalability concerns: How scalable is OSCommerce? I am scared if my site gets features in Digg.com, Slashdot.com or something similar, I might have an immediate traffic spike. For argument sake, let's say, I start 25,000 users in matter of hours. Can Os Commerce handle such big load? I've heard a lot about Cloud hosting (hosting on a cluster of servers) such as "GoGrid.com". The claim is that resources will automatically expand (scale) to accommodate spike in traffic. So, if your site is using one-server (say 1 cpu, 1gb ram), and you hit a traffic spike. It will automatically spawn few more server processes and load-balance your traffic load across the system. That sounds like a good idea. But I am not sure if you need to make changes in Os Commerce code to take advantage of auto-scalaing? Or is it something automatic? So, my question: Can OS Commerce quickly scale, if needed? Will it scale automatically (just host it on GoGrid and forget about it) or will it require some code changes? Multi Vendor Shipping: I have been looking for MVS module/contribution and found some. But unfortunately they don't all things that they should. To me, essential features of MVS module/contributions are: # Admin area for each vendor # Vendors manage their own products (and possibly shipping methods); # Products from all vendors are sold through a joint storefront; # Customer orders can contain items from several vendors; # All payments are processed through the common payment system; # Root administrator can record payouts to each particular vendor. # Support for some post-transaction logic/API. For example, when an order is received, the site should be able to connect to Vendor's site and upload order details to their system (using some XML-RPC API calls maybe?) I am not sure if any MVS supports this. Or if OS Commerce is working on such a thing. Any ideas/news? Ajax front-end: From all the demo stores I have seen, the front-end UI of OScommerce seems a bit antiquated. Java Script is available on most (if not all) browsers. Why not use Ajax and make OS Commerce more responsive? I know there are some ajax contirbutions but I am not sure these contributions will play nice with other contributions. For example, what if you were to add MVS contribution and Ajax contribution and they don't play nice together? It'd be nice if OS Commerce had native support for it. Any idea of this happening soon? I read about Os Commerce v 3.0 in March 2009. But this is end of 2010 now and it hasn't been released yet.
Guest Posted September 10, 2010 Posted September 10, 2010 I have a bunch of general questions about OsCommerce. I am hoping some experienced developers would be able to shed some light on them. Scalability concerns: How scalable is OSCommerce? I am scared if my site gets features in Digg.com, Slashdot.com or something similar, I might have an immediate traffic spike. For argument sake, let's say, I start 25,000 users in matter of hours. Can Os Commerce handle such big load? I've heard a lot about Cloud hosting (hosting on a cluster of servers) such as "GoGrid.com". The claim is that resources will automatically expand (scale) to accommodate spike in traffic. So, if your site is using one-server (say 1 cpu, 1gb ram), and you hit a traffic spike. It will automatically spawn few more server processes and load-balance your traffic load across the system. That sounds like a good idea. But I am not sure if you need to make changes in Os Commerce code to take advantage of auto-scalaing? Or is it something automatic? So, my question: Can OS Commerce quickly scale, if needed? Will it scale automatically (just host it on GoGrid and forget about it) or will it require some code changes? First off, welcome to the forum. osCommerce will process your customers without any concerns, dreaming that your site will have 25000 on it at any one time is not feasible. The most customers I have ever seen on any of my managed sites was just over 800 and the site functions flawlessly. I believe the capabilities fall two your second question....hosting. Cloud of Grid hosting is becoming more common now with hosting providers as a form of resource sharing and that makes good sense from a hosting point of view. The type of hosting account you choose makes no difference to osCommerce, although I would definitely suggest Linux over Windows hosting. If your traffic increases to you 'target' amount of 25000 and your product database is large, you may need to look into streamlining the database queries to increase the speed of requests. You will find several threads on this board regarding that process and the benefits. Chris
instasaint Posted September 10, 2010 Author Posted September 10, 2010 First off, welcome to the forum. Thanks, Chris :-) Cloud of Grid hosting is becoming more common now with hosting providers as a form of resource sharing and that makes good sense from a hosting point of view. The type of hosting account you choose makes no difference to osCommerce, although I would definitely suggest Linux over Windows hosting. So, no code change needs to be made in OSC code to take advantage of load-balancing, and other cloud/grid infrastructure? It happens automatically? I thought maybe I'd have to change the way sessions work in OSC. Because if more than one-server is involved in hosting and serving the website, how will sessions migrate from one computer to another? Let's say, Customer A is shopping (and being served by Host1), customer A now adds some product. But during checkout, Customer A's request is served by Host2. Now, Host2 won't have any knowledge of Customer A's items that were already in the cart. So, it will show a blank cart. Right? Or will it automatically migrate sessions from Host1 to Host2? If your traffic increases to you 'target' amount of 25000 and your product database is large, you may need to look into streamlining the database queries to increase the speed of requests. You will find several threads on this board regarding that process and the benefits. Yes, for argument sake, let's assume we have so many customers pounding the server. Say, what if I was giving away free headphones (for promotion purposes) and not charging anything. We might get a lot of users online at the same time trying to place order for their free headphones. And if they are ordering from the site, they might also order something else from my store that is not free. If you've links to some threads that talk about performance optimization, can you share them with me? I will search myself. What should I search for? "oscommerce performance optimization" ? Thanks, Chris, for your helpful response. I appreciate it.
Guest Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 Hi, Your hosting provider will allocate resources for their Grid/Cloud hosting. There are no changes required in OSC. I currently have more than a dozen sites using Grid hosting and have not made any changes to OSC to accommodate that. Here are a couple optimization threads: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/144736-speed-performance-optimizations/ http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/355703-any-ways-to-improve-speed-on-my-site-further/ Chris
instasaint Posted September 11, 2010 Author Posted September 11, 2010 Hi, Your hosting provider will allocate resources for their Grid/Cloud hosting. There are no changes required in OSC. I currently have more than a dozen sites using Grid hosting and have not made any changes to OSC to accommodate that. Here are a couple optimization threads: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/144736-speed-performance-optimizations/ http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/355703-any-ways-to-improve-speed-on-my-site-further/ Chris Hey, thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Can you advise on some affordable cloud hosting as well? I don't expect to get 25,000 customers everyday. Maybe once in a year. So, I am looking for a cloud hosting that's cheap to begin with. But if traffic spikes (say 1 day in a year), it automatically scales up. I checked out RackSpace Cloud hosting, and it starts from $149/mo. SiteGround starts from $129. Amazon might make sense but I don't have the skills to configure a virgin box from scratch(meaning a box that just has OS installed and no hosting tools like cPanel etc on it). I'd prefer a cloud-host that I can use like any other regular hosting. I get cPanel account, ftp account, email account, ssh account. Upload site, configure it and done with it. Any one else has advise on following outstanding concerns of mine? Multi Vendor Shipping: I have been looking for MVS module/contribution and found some. But unfortunately they don't all things that they should. To me, essential features of MVS module/contributions are: # Admin area for each vendor # Vendors manage their own products (and possibly shipping methods); # Products from all vendors are sold through a joint storefront; # Customer orders can contain items from several vendors; # All payments are processed through the common payment system; # Root administrator can record payouts to each particular vendor. # Support for some post-transaction logic/API. For example, when an order is received, the site should be able to connect to Vendor's site and upload order details to their system (using some XML-RPC API calls maybe?) I am not sure if any MVS supports this. Or if OS Commerce is working on such a thing. Any ideas/news? Ajax front-end: From all the demo stores I have seen, the front-end UI of OScommerce seems a bit antiquated. Java Script is available on most (if not all) browsers. Why not use Ajax and make OS Commerce more responsive? I know there are some ajax contirbutions but I am not sure these contributions will play nice with other contributions. For example, what if you were to add MVS contribution and Ajax contribution and they don't play nice together? It'd be nice if OS Commerce had native support for it. Any idea of this happening soon? I read about Os Commerce v 3.0 in March 2009. But this is end of 2010 now and it hasn't been released yet.
Guest Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 Hi, Cloud/Grid hosting is cheaper for Hosting Providers to offer. The grid hosting I offer to my clients is $46.00/yr and has 25 SQL databases, 100 email accounts, 20GB hard drive space and 24/7 support. If you get a dedicated server, you are NOT usually on Grid hosting. Grid hosting is mainly shared servers. As for your other queries, I have never used MVS and I can not comment on why/how the development team does things. Ok, I could comment but it wouldn't be nice, so I will digress. Chris
♥kymation Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 There's only one MVS Addon that I know of that works -- this one. The original purpose of that mod was to handle shipping from multiple locations using different shipping modules, mostly for vendors who drop-ship. There was some interest in having it email the order to the vendor, so that was added as an option. Over the years, there has been very little community interest in adding additional features. Most of the interest has been in features that were of interest only to the person making the request. Your list seems to mostly fall in this category. You may find others interested in some of these features, but I doubt you'll find very many. MVS is not very widely used as it is. In any case, the MVS support thread is probably the best place to ask questions and make suggestions. Chris -- If you have any suggestions for improving support, please post them. The development team (Gee, I'm a team now. Wow.) is always willing to listen. I may even adopt your suggestions -- after I'm done with my full-time job, other osC Addons that I support, and numerous other projects. Regards Jim See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.
Guest Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 Hi Jim, My apologies if you thought my comments above were directed at the MVS contributors. In fact, they were directed at the OSC Development Team. Chris
♥kymation Posted September 11, 2010 Posted September 11, 2010 No apologies needed. I'm always willing to listen to any ideas for improving my code. As to the osC development team, I refuse to criticize anything that I got for free. Regards Jim See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.
instasaint Posted September 11, 2010 Author Posted September 11, 2010 Hi, Cloud/Grid hosting is cheaper for Hosting Providers to offer. The grid hosting I offer to my clients is $46.00/yr and has 25 SQL databases, 100 email accounts, 20GB hard drive space and 24/7 support. Chris Hey, Chris, do tell me about your hosting company. I would love to consider your hosting as well. Just to be sure though: if traffic does spike, your hosting can automatically add resources to my OSC installation to handle traffic spike? There's only one MVS Addon that I know of that works -- this one. Regards Jim Hey Jim, thanks for the link. This looks like a good start. Yes, you are right, I do have interest in some other features. Specially: # Admin area for each vendor # Vendors manage their own products (and possibly shipping methods); If there is not a lot of community interest, can you recommend some developers who can develop these features for me? For a fee, of course. There is another shopping cart (but not free) "CS Cart". They have a Multi Vendor Editon. Just Google for CS Cart Multi Vendor edition and you'd see it.
♥kymation Posted September 12, 2010 Posted September 12, 2010 I took a look at CS-Cart. Their website says that is is open source software, but the code itself says that it is not. It also says that their multi-vendor version is still in development. I will reserve judgment until I see the actual product. There is an osCommerce Addon that creates a Mall-type store, which sounds like it would meet some of your requirements. I don't remember the name; perhaps someone else here can help. Regards Jim See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.
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