Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Tronkle
- What's so new about Tronkle technology
- How is Tronkle different from a classic web hosting service
- How is Tronkle different from a content delivery network (CDN)
- Why is Tronkle so cheap/expensive
- Are there any changes that I need to do my site in order to use Tronkle
- How many domains and databases can I use for a single account
- Why doesn't mod_rewrite / redirection / htaccess / other Apache feature work
- What are the downsides of Tronkle
- When I access the site I don't get it from the server that is closest to me. Why does this happen?
- Why doesn't Tronkle offer any email services
- What new services/features/improvements does Tronkle plan for the future
- What is Tronkle
is a distributed web hosting provider. Websites hosted on Tronkle are present on several servers that the client chooses from several locations available around the globe. This way each time a visitor accesses a Tronkle hosted website the visitor accesses the site from the server that is closest to him. All this happens automatically without the user ever noticing this. And it gets better: you don't have to make any changes to your code in order to use our services and serve your site from multiple servers around the globe at the same time. You can see Tronkle as a Content Delivery Network that holds a complete copy of all files, databases and services on each edge node or you can see Tronkle as a LAMP web hosting service that puts your website on several servers around the globe with automatic balancing, fail-over and synchronization. For more information about how all this works and what are Tronkle's unique features please visit our features page.
- What's so new about Tronkle technology
In short: we don't know of any other similar service at this time. That's what we call "new technology". architecture is similar to a but we offer more services, much more flexibility and lower prices. On the other hand from the clients' perspective is just like any other classic web hosting service but with far more powerful features. When we say "new technology" this is not just another marketing hype - we really mean that and we're very proud of it. On the other hand please note that being new this technology is still experimental and under heavy developement - some things might break at any time.
- How is Tronkle different from a classic web hosting service
You use it just like any other traditional web hosting service but is so much different under the hood. It serves your pages from several locations (that you choose) around the globe. This brings a considerable number of advantages over traditional web hosting and you can find out more about this on our features page. In short: is in a different league.
- How is Tronkle different from a content delivery network (CDN)
architecture resambles that of a but the main difference is that you use it for all-purpose web hosting just like any other web hosting serving dynamic content coming from your databases. With all you get is static content (aka a bunch of files). is also more flexible, much easier to use and cheaper. For a more detailed comparison please see our features page
- Why is Tronkle so cheap/expensive
If you compare it to a , a dedicated server or a custom solution is cheap. This is possible because we have a number of tricks under our sleeves (eg: we don't rely so much on marketing and we don't have other such "corporative costs"). If you compare to classic web-hosting is more expensive because it trully offers a new technology and it trully offers what it says. Common web hosting services offer everything "unlimited" nowadays for a ridiculous price. This marketing scheme relies on the hope that you won't actually use much of their resources. If you do, you will find that they either have some limitations that they forgot to tell you about or they would simply suspend/terminate your account. If you read their fineprints you will actually see that they do that. Our services are still shared and we will also suspend or terminate your account if you abuse it. However the main difference is that we don't offer unlimited storage nor unlimited traffic, so having to much traffic or too much occupied storage will not get your account suspended. By having several servers we will also be able to support heavier processing load for your site. You will find that our limitations are much laxer than those of a regular web hosting service. In short: we offer what we say we offer and if you don't really abuse our services everything will be fine.
- Are there any changes that I need to do my site in order to use Tronkle
No. That's one of our many features and we're very proud of it. However, due to architecture there are some differences in the way things work. For example you will find that the database reads are faster but the database writes are slower. You can optimize your code to do less database writes or to do them after the page has been generated and sent to the client when possible. This kind of changes are optional and only affect how much performance you squeeze out of the system. Also please see our answer regarding Apache features (such as mod_rewrite or htaccess) if your site relies on these.
- How many domains and databases can I use for a single account
Unlimited domains and unlimited number of databases for a single account. Unlike classic web hosting we don't sell "per domain". We make our money per real resources (storage, traffic). That's why we don't offer "unlimited" storage or traffic.
- Why doesn't mod_rewrite / redirection / htaccess / other Apache feature work
In order to deliver maximum performance we use Lighttpd instead of Apache. This performance increase is achieved by getting rid of some features, thus all these Apache "goodies" are not available. If there is sufficient demand for mod_rewrite features we will consider implementing a feature that will mimic mod_rewrite functionality.
- What are the downsides of Tronkle
This is the tough question. Nothing comes for free. is a great new technology but in some conditions may perform poorly. This is due to the fact that every piece of data (file or database) that is written on any server must be written automatically to all other servers (chosen by you). This is what we call "a write". If your application has more writes than reads it will not benefit very much from and it will probably perform poorly. However, in many situations the applications can be configured either to make less writes (eg: if you track your users by writing information in the database or in a file you can replace this by a professional external service such as Google Analytics) or at least to make them after the page has been generated and sent to the visitor's browser. We also work hard on improving our technology and we will achieve better write performance soon.
- When I access the site I don't get it from the server that is closest to me. Why does this happen?
The server that is chosen might not actually be the closest one because we don't rely on location but rather on performance measurements. Geographically some other server might be closer to the visitor but that doesn't mean that it would also be faster. We try to choose the fastest server for each visitor by using some pretty complicated techniques. Like all things that are complicated they are not 100% accurate. You should also note that the server must be activated for that particular client account and must also be up - the client can see this in our control panel.
- Why doesn't Tronkle offer any email services
Simply because we are so busy developing our new technologies that we don't have the time to concentrate on this type of service. On the other hand there are so many email services of all kinds that there wouldn't be much point in concentrating our efforts on something like this. We have a special option in our control panel that will setup your dns records so that you are able to use GMail for Domains. So it's still very easy to have email for your domains with huge amounts of storage and for no additional price. If there are many requests for email services we might consider adding this in the future.
- What new services/features/improvements does Tronkle plan for the future
We have soooo many plans for the future that we don't know what to begin with. What you see is just the very beginning. will evolve. We won't tell you what we're working on because we don't want our competition to find out but rest assured: great things are coming for clients.