Great care needs to taken when setting up infrastructure for a web startup business as it is one of the core foundations of an online business. To build a solid foundation defining what the business is, where is it going and how it is going to get there needs to be taken into account.
Before selecting how to setup the infrastructure for a web business the following parameters typically need to be defined.
1. Budget
2. Development timeline and traffic ramp up time line
3. Bandwidth
4. Software
5. Hardware
6. Data storage
7. Backup
8. Security
9. Monitoring
10. Maintenance
A typical set of questions I ask are
How long before you plan on releasing a live site and begin a advertising campaign ?
How many people are going to be visiting the site ?
What time of day are they visiting ?
Are they visiting at the same time, if so how often and how many at once ?
What are the sources of traffic paid online advertising, non paid search results, facebook, traditional advertising tv,radio or print ?
What geographic areas are they visiting from ?
What and how much are they going to be looking at, Pictures, Video, Text ?
What are how much they going to be sending to you, Pictures, Video, Text ?
How long are they staying ?
What are the low traffic periods going to be ?
Can there be blackouts for maintenance ?
How patient are they and fast do they expect the site to be ?
What type of data is being saved ?
How much data is being saved ?
How important is this data ?
Is the data personal and private ?
Who will maintain the servers and software ?
Where is design and development going to test ?
What is the monthly and setup budget available for running the site ?
What platforms are going to be used ?
Are there any remote api’s used which are high in volume or critical ?
The proper balance can provide a well oiled system which can be expanded when needed.