Rich Media Hosting

Insider Tips for
Rich Media
Planning is key whether you're doing it yourself or using a hosting provider. Just as much attention needs to go into designing the infrastructure that's running your site as developing the content. Keep these things in mind as you develop your rich media project.

1. Build for Peak Performance
You can never exactly predict your site popularity or traffic, especially if you make some noise in social media. But you need to have a good idea what you and your users consider 'acceptable performance' when it comes to streaming and load times no matter what site traffic is like. Also have realistic projections for short-term and long-term capacity so you can create a plan for scaling. Knowing these two things upfront will go a long way to figuring how robust of a config you'll want now and need later.

2. Know Your Storage Story
First, consider what kind of files will you be storing and how often they'll be altered (static vs. dynamic content). Will you serve streaming content or progressive downloads? Also think about scaling your storage and how much capacity you will need. Don't just think about next month or year, but five years from now. Plan now so you can grow efficiently and cost-effectively while not outgrowing your solution and incurring more expenses.

3. Got Bandwidth?
Most businesses don't have the in-house bandwidth to handle even moderate regional traffic loads. Make sure you're on a proven, reliable network that can deliver high quality, ample bandwidth for any scenario. Have a good idea how much bandwidth, incoming and outgoing, you'll need—your rich media site will probably consume a lot of both. Also, will your content be served up globally? Because you may need CDN (Content Distribution Network). And if you're outsourcing, be on the lookout for providers that don't provide high performance bandwidth but still charge for it both incoming and outgoing.