The site resides on a shared web server and communicates with a shared database server via the LAN.  For dynamic CMS's such as Drupal that have a heavy dependence on the database during their normal course of operations, this is a non-optimal environment.  All DB queries and response must traverse the LAN, thereby adding transmission latency to that normally encountered when accessing disk storage.  In addition, both the web server and the database server are shared , with a number of users contending for resources at any one point in time.