Can you host a sub-domain on a separate server with a separate hosting account?

Question

I've got a domain, let’s call it www.superhappyfunfun.com, and I've been very successful with this site. I have tons of inbound links and everyone is happy.

Now I want to install Discourse on a subdomain of my main site: questions.superhappyfunfun.com.

The problem is that Discourse is a bleeding edge beta software application and I'm afraid that a bug could crash my main website.

There is also the issue of performance. Discourse is a resource hog and takes some cpu cycles to run. I'm afraid if I run Discourse on the same server as superhappyfunfun.com the performance of both will suffer.

Is there a way to do a virtual install?

By that I mean I install discourse on a separate server with a separate hosting account but it appears to Google to be installed as a subdomain of my main site.

If this is possible where might I find some information on how to accomplish this feat?

Answer 1

Of course, it's possible. All you have to do is to create a DNS record IN A pointing to the IP of your new server. See here, for example: http://content.websitegear.com/article/subdomain_setup.htm