Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 03:59:22 +0200 From: Olaf Hoyer <ohoyer@fbwi.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> To: Ben Schumacher <bs@cyalchemy.com> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Server Hardware Configuration Question. Message-ID: <4.1.19991027034125.00bbad80@mailserv.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19991026182732.00989a80@mail.cyalchemy.com>
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>What I need is an idea of a good hardware configuration of (most likely) 2= =20 >machines that would be able to handle this much potential traffic. I've=20 >had a lot of experience with FreeBSD and think that it would be the best=20 >solution for this, running a combination of Apace and MySQL, but I need to= =20 >know what I can do on the hardware side to support it. > >I guess what I really need is a good idea of what is necessary to make=20 >these machines powerful and responsive. I think the best solution for the= =20 >web server would be a powerful P3 Xeon server, using a hardware RAID system= =20 >with at least 1GB of RAM. The database server, on the other hand, I'm a=20 >little more unsure about. I haven't had enough experience with MySQL to=20 >know what keeps to running fast and smooth. I figure that it probably=20 >relies heavily on drive speed and RAM, but how important are issues like=20 >having a large L2 cache on the processor? Hi! Well, I've discussed those server topics on another list already, and we agreed there to the following statements, after also having discussed the famous mindcraft bench Win NT vs Linux. German mag c't also did its own implementation of the test, using practical parameters for it, and did those accordingly to the real load statistic of their own web server. (www.heise.de has approx 100 hits/sec in peak times, on a SUN Enterprise= 450) There is also a link with an english translation, with some nice graphics, doing the same tests with different numbers of CPUs... General statements were (Based on Intel architecture (They had a quad Siemens Primergy) The more static the content is, the less numbers of CPUs are needed You need lots of RAM, because you have numerous handles to deal with. HUge L2 caches are not that bad, also. Only question is, does the added value (price) due to more 2nd level cache corresponds with the performance gain. 1 or 2 ethernet cards are enough (at least under Linux with its TCP/IP stack and SMP handling), they shall be enough. (For fault tolerance or load-balancing, ok- they are cheap nowadays...=20 (That was NTs advantage- to blast enough content out to saturate 4 NICs) Put the journals (database access, logs, transaction files, everything you need to write to another partition/HDD/RAID than that where you have to distribute your contents from. Look at: http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/13/186-1/ for the comparison between NT/Linux, where some very interesting aspects were evaluated There is no english online version available for their former stress test of their own web-server. IN short, their own Enterprise 450 Dual CPU stands at Xlink in a server farm, and has AFAIR only 1 NIC actually used. They put it into service in March this year, using Solaris 2.6 on it, having 100 hits/sec in peak times. Regards Olaf Hoyer - - - - - - - -=20 Olaf Hoyer ICQ: 22838075 mailto: Olaf.Hoyer@nightfire.de home: www.nightfire.de (The home of the burning CPU) Wer mit Ungeheuern k=E4mpft, mag zusehn,=20 da=DF er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund=20 auch in dich hinein. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und B=F6se) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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