Hosting Plan for Multi-tenant ASP.NET Application

Question

If i have a multi-tenant asp.net MVC application, something like basecamp ,what's the suitable hosting plan for me, is it a "Shared Hosting" or "Dedicated Server" is best fit for me.

Some parameters for the project: - Each tenant will have a different database. - Each tenant will have its own sub-domain. - Expected number of tenants in the first year for the product, about 1000 tenant.

So how can I manage the hosting part of this project ? Am open for any suggestions even if they are not part of my question.

Answer 1

To decide which infrastructure best fits your application you need to take into account parameters like how "active" your tenants will be or how "heavy" your application is.

For example, a simple, read only application for 1000 user may fit a pretty small dedicated server. But a different system may need a couple of DB servers and 3 web servers in a load balanced configuration (a basecamp-like with 1000 users may need a configuration like that)

You should not underestimate this problem: I don't think that a single server would be powerfull enough, and when you have more than one server your sysadmin problems start to grow :)

Remember that another viable alternative is hosting your application in a cloud environment (ie: http://aws.amazon.com or Microsoft Azure). But sometimes going to the cloud need a different approach on application's architecture.

Also, remember to take into account consideration like the availability of your application (ie: what happens when the server goes down?)