My website (http://www.sitesatlas.com) uses a primitive database-template system (DbtoWeb) to create over 20,000 static pages locally, and then it takes many hours to upload them all to my web server. Since it takes so much effort, I only make major changes to the website once or twice a year. I would like to migrate to a CMS to make things easier, but I'm not sure whether Drupal is right for me...
- Is Drupal a good choice for a website of this size and traffic of around 40,000 pageviews/day if I use extensive caching?
- I have everything in a database already, from file names and page titles to content links and images. Can I use my existing database in Drupal? How do I go about integrating it?
- Once the site is rebuilt within Drupal, can I mass-create future pages as well (one for every city in Canada, for example) by editing or adding the databases?
Thank you in advance.
Comments
Yes*, Yes*, Hmmm
That's the short answers.
1. Drupal is a good (great?) choice for content management. It (or any other CMS) will never compete server-resource-wise with static HTML pages, though. So, if you're expecting to serve 40,000 pageviews per day on a $7.95/month hosting plan, expect problems and outages. If you're willing to pay for decent hosting (VPS or dedicated or well configured shared), Drupal can definitely do it. That's somewhat a of a lousy answer, though, as all I'm saying is that you need to throw some money at resources.
2. Yep. It's a significant task, though. You'll need to import it all into Drupal, but it's very doable. Again - a measure of time/money/effort. If you're a programmer and have the time to invest, no worries. If not, expect to pay someone some money to make that happen. It would be simpler if you had something a bit more common - many import / export scripts have been written for things like wordpress or movable type or whatever...
3. You can do anything in Drupal if you write a module to do it. It's extremely modular that way. You shouldn't expect to fiddle with the database directly, though -- that will get you into trouble quickly.
Drew Gorton
Gorton Studios
Follow-up on bringing a large site into Drupal
Thanks, Drew. I'm relieved to know it's possible at least, now I need to focus on actually doing it.
My current site is on a dedicated RaQ4. Once the site is created in Drupal, how hard is it to move it to a new server?
Regarding number 3, if I've understood correctly, if I want to add a new database once the site is in Drupal, the module would be necessary as a bridge to get the data from my new db into the system's db?
I need to focus on the site content and my programming skills are limited, so I will need to hire someone to help me make the move.
yes doable
Hi,
These tasks are doable using drupal.
Moving the site b/w diff servers is not that hard with a drupal based solution.
-- Sree --
IRC Nick: sreeveturi
A few setup/server tips
Site with mostly anonymous users consume fewer resources because their pages can be served from a cache
Check into Drupal's built in page caching
2 Filesystem cache modules Boost http://drupal.org/project/boost and Fastpath http://drupal.org/project/fastpath_fscache
Memory Cache module (Memcache module) http://drupal.org/project/memcache
Also learn about Mysql caching (easy to se in the my.conf file)
Not a comprehensive list but a start
Perhaps Import your Pages
I would strongly consider importing all existing pages into Drupal and then you could proceed henceforth with a more standard Drupal setup. See this module: http://drupal.org/project/import_html
It is complicated to use, but it works. I have successfully used it. :)
Fred