Website/PHP App on One Server; MySQL DB on a Different Server - Feasible?

[Jake]

I apologize for what is probably a "stupid", uninformed question but
here goes...

I just inherited an ASP site project currently running off of a
Microsoft Access DB which I'd really like to convert to MySQL/PHP.
The only problem is that the site's host only supports Microsoft
Access and SQL DBs. MS SQL is simply not an option for us at this
time and the site is getting enough traffic that Access's 10
concurrent connection limitation is going to start to become an issue
in a hurry. This client recently renewed their annual subscription
for hosting services from the aforementioned provider so switching
hosts is not an option at this time.

I'd like to convert the Access DB to MySQL and host the DB on my
host's server while maintaining the asp/php site on the current host's
box but am worried that it will dramatically increase the time it
takes to process the asp/php scripts. It this sort of setup generally
frowned upon? Is there any way of estimating script processing time
without implementing the setup I've described and testing it
thoroughly? I should mention that the script is a very basic "SELECT"
query that simply pulls info from a database; it is nothing complex or
extremely taxing resource, server or bandwidth wise. Am I completely
off my rocker?

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. TIA

JP

[Andy Hassall]

On 5 Feb 2004 09:06:57 -0800, lo*****@yahoo.com (Jake) wrote:

I'd like to convert the Access DB to MySQL and host the DB on my
host's server while maintaining the asp/php site on the current host's
box but am worried that it will dramatically increase the time it
takes to process the asp/php scripts. It this sort of setup generally
frowned upon? Is there any way of estimating script processing time
without implementing the setup I've described and testing it
thoroughly? I should mention that the script is a very basic "SELECT"
query that simply pulls info from a database; it is nothing complex or
extremely taxing resource, server or bandwidth wise. Am I completely
off my rocker?

Actually, separating database and web servers between two separate machines is
one approach to speed things up, given a sufficiently fast network link. If
it's busy enough that PHP/webserver and the database are both contending for
resources, giving them each their own machines can improve performance.

Just make sure the network connection doesn't become a worse bottleneck. If
you're running the database connection over the Internet though, rather than a
LAN between the two, that would be pretty dodgy, from both performance and
security points of view.

--
Andy Hassall <an**@andyh.co.uk> / Space: disk usage analysis tool
<http://www.andyh.co.uk> / <http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space>

[David Precious]

Andy Hassall wrote:

On 5 Feb 2004 09:06:57 -0800, lo*****@yahoo.com (Jake) wrote:

I'd like to convert the Access DB to MySQL and host the DB on my
host's server while maintaining the asp/php site on the current host's
box but am worried that it will dramatically increase the time it
takes to process the asp/php scripts. It this sort of setup generally
frowned upon? Is there any way of estimating script processing time
without implementing the setup I've described and testing it
thoroughly? I should mention that the script is a very basic "SELECT"
query that simply pulls info from a database; it is nothing complex or
extremely taxing resource, server or bandwidth wise. Am I completely
off my rocker?

Actually, separating database and web servers between two separate
machines is
one approach to speed things up, given a sufficiently fast network link.
If it's busy enough that PHP/webserver and the database are both
contending for resources, giving them each their own machines can improve
performance.

Just make sure the network connection doesn't become a worse bottleneck.
If
you're running the database connection over the Internet though, rather
than a LAN between the two, that would be pretty dodgy, from both
performance and security points of view.

You could set up a secure tunnel between the two using stunnel
(http://www.stunnel.org/), or use SSH (extra bonus being that you could
also use compression).

That would take care of the security. Perhaps using persistent connections
may improve the speed.

Cheers

Dave P

--
David Precious
http://www.preshweb.co.uk/

[Jochen Daum]

Hi Jake!
On 5 Feb 2004 09:06:57 -0800, lo*****@yahoo.com (Jake) wrote:

I apologize for what is probably a "stupid", uninformed question but
here goes...

I just inherited an ASP site project currently running off of a
Microsoft Access DB which I'd really like to convert to MySQL/PHP.
The only problem is that the site's host only supports Microsoft
Access and SQL DBs. MS SQL is simply not an option for us at this
time

Can you get into more detail on that? I'm happily using this
combination and it gives you some more options with reporting
(subqueries) and programming structure (by using views and stored
procedures)

HTH, Jochen
--
Jochen Daum - CANS Ltd.
PHP DB Edit Toolkit -- PHP scripts for building
database editing interfaces.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpdbedittk/

[Jake]

Greetings...

"Jochen Daum" <jo*********@cans.co.nz> wrote in message
news:ej********************************@4ax.com...

Hi Jake!
On 5 Feb 2004 09:06:57 -0800, lo*****@yahoo.com (Jake) wrote:

I just inherited an ASP site project currently running off of a
Microsoft Access DB which I'd really like to convert to MySQL/PHP.
The only problem is that the site's host only supports Microsoft
Access and SQL DBs. MS SQL is simply not an option for us at this
time

Can you get into more detail on that? I'm happily using this
combination and it gives you some more options with reporting
(subqueries) and programming structure (by using views and stored
procedures)

HTH, Jochen
--
Jochen Daum - CANS Ltd.

We simply don't have the financial means necessary to implement a MS SQL
solution at this time. Thanks for your and everyone's comments!

JP

[Jochen Daum]

Hi!

We simply don't have the financial means necessary to implement a MS SQL
solution at this time. Thanks for your and everyone's comments!

I read it wrong the first place. I thought you had SQL Server already.
Wouldn't have suggested it otherwise.

Jochen
--
Jochen Daum - Cabletalk Group Ltd.
PHP DB Edit Toolkit -- PHP scripts for building
database editing interfaces.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpdbedittk/