Forum Moderators: phranque
What is the most important.
I believe the server will be a P4 2.3 G but with 512 MB Ram should I upgrade this to 1 Gig.
My most important want is speed.
Any advice or suggestions? The site has been live for some time (5 years or so) and has a good rep but I am petrified of moving as noe I have good if not excellent SERPS.
Is RAID worthwhile?
Thank you
My most important want is speed.
It all depends on the sites you are hosting. Are they dynamic or static pages? Dynamic sites need more RAM as they have much more processing to do.
To get maximum speed, you need as much onboard RAM as possible. 1GB is a *must*
RAID can be worthwhile. It depends on your application though. Are you serving up lots of dynamic content from a DB, with visitors registering their details into the DB? If so, RAID will help you with both speed and security.
If you're dynamic, make sure you cache as much as possible into memory. That will certainly help speed, as you won't have to reprocess every page every time, and this fact eliminates potential calls to the database, which also slows down your appliacation!
Finally, turn on compression (mod_gzip in Apache). This will help the percieved speed of your site immensely when compared with non-compressed output, especially for your dial-up visitors.
HTH,
JP
Most pages are .shtml so not what I would call dynamic.
The problem is the sites growth, I anticipate 100GB (per month) by end 2004, this is whay I want speed so will take your recommendatioion of 1 GB RAM to heart.
Any other recommendations?
The cache I am looking at is 512 KB.
Saying that, if you have decided to move I'll comment on the hardware. PIIIs are definitely yesterday's technology. I'd rather have 256 MB of RAM on a fast P4 than 1024 or 2048 MB of RAM on a PIII. Note also that if it's a PIII the RAM is likely to be SDRAM (or the ECC version of SDRAM). With a P4 it will be RDRAM or DDRSDRAM, both substantially faster. 512 kb of cache is standard on the old PIII processors, so they aren't doing you a favour.
RAID 0 is faster than a single hard disk on disk intensive applications that push the IDE sub-system. However, don't settle for less than 7200 rpm spindle speed and 8 MB of cache on your hard disk/s. A set of old 5400 rpm hard disks with 2 MB of cache in RAID 0 will simply CRAWL compared with a single 7200 rpm 8MB cache disk. Hope that helps.
We or should I say I have not been pushed to use a dedicated it has just come to a stage where by we need it.
On the hardware I find that P4 2.4 G but with 512 MB Ram is quite standard and the 512 K of cache is stanrd throughout the host offers even top end. I can upgrade the RAM to 1 GB but not the cache.
It is an enormous move as we have been around since 98 and are quite welll known with high SERPS so of course I am worried about damaging that.
Basically is I ave built the domain and now want to move it, bu I do not want to move it again for at least 5 years unless a major techno advance comes along.
I am most concerned of SE's finding us.
I know with 100GB it will not all come from SE's but I do not like to knock off anyone,
That way, you have a stand alone box whose server capacity is totally dedicated to your stuff instead of shared between your sites and those of other people, but without the need for you to play system administrator.
The primary advice for someone this would be a good option for is, of course, to make sure and go with a company that really does a good job of taking care of the managed server box you rent from them.
There are also individuals and companies who do server management on other people's dedicated servers they own and co-lo or rent from whomever on a monthly contract basis. However, with this arrangement, one is of course giving the folks at the "we manage your server from afar for you via SSH" company root on your box. Still, it's a viable option for some, so I thought I would mention it.
Hope this helps,
Midwestguy
go with a company that really does a good job of taking care of the managed server box you rent from them
Therein lies the rub. How do you assess the service?
With our currest hosts I kinda went by what THEY said their service was like :-(
1) Uptime
2) Support (Is it managed or unmanaged.. get manged if you don't know how to take care of all the patches and especially security) (24x7 and 7 days a week is better than 9to5)
3) Server Configuration
4) Speed
5) Backup (if not Raid).. Backup can save you lot of money.. but if you want to spend extra you can go with raid
........
I guess there are many more factors but I focused on this stuff and am very happy with our server :)
NS
memory, minimum 512MB
dual or quad cpu
hardware caching raid configured as raid mirrors.
redundant power supplies
compaq, ibm, dell in order of preference
raid 0 is just asking for trouble.
multiple cpu's make for a more responsive machine
a dual pentium pro 200MHZ/512MB can swamp a
100Mbps uplink. (we call this one "old geezer",
500+ days continuous uptime on netcraft)
a quad xeon 500MHZ/2GB can push 300Mbps sustained
at 30% cpu on a 1Gbps uplink. That's about 65K GB
a month. :)
All figures were observed on production Win2k
servers running IIS5. YMMV on *nix/apache.
++++
memory, minimum 512MB
dual or quad cpu
hardware caching raid configured as raid mirrors.
redundant power supplies
I agree.
raid 0 is just asking for trouble.
Er, yes if you are having it "instead" of RAID 1 (mirrored). You CAN have the best of both worlds by getting the speed advantages of RAID 0 + the security of RAID 1 (does involve a minimum of four hard disks).
a dual pentium pro 200MHZ/512MB .... a quad xeon 500MHZ/2GB
Pentium Pros are no more. Intel dual CPU solutions offer Xeons which now go upto 3.0 GHz. 2.0 GHz would probably be the lowest server sold new today but I may be wrong. The Dells, IBMs and Compaqs of this world may have some old stock of 1.13 GHz that they'd dearly like to get rid of ;-)
Tip: Rather than use your own server, let the host supply it if they also take responsibility for tech support/warranty/repairs of the server. It's always best to have only one butt to kick ;-)
<edit>typo </edit>
[edited by: Macro at 2:09 pm (utc) on Sep. 12, 2003]
a quad xeon 500MHZ/2GB can push 300Mbps sustained
at 30% cpu on a 1Gbps uplink. That's about 65K GB
a month. :)
That's one mean machine!
We have a dual 2.4Ghz Xeon server with 1gig RAM with IIS 5 on win2kserver.
and we thought it was preaty descent.
We're not experts in running webservers
I would rather have a smp + raid server using branded
older technology than a single cpu latest and greatest
clone.
Even my desktops are smp + raid. My oldest desktop
can swamp 100Mbps during testing use.
The point is that even the dual ppro would serve
visitthailand's needs.
++++
visit thailand,
we did exactly the same last winter and experienced NO problems whatsoever. it cost me a few sleepless nights to configure the linux server (no previous experience), but there is a great *nix forum here which will help you. (have a look at last february's posts to see me bombard the pros with questions ;-)
as for the IP change, i swapped my domain over to the new IP and left my old site up on the old IP for a month (allow possible time for more). i also put a link to the new IP address as the very first link on my old site. google was the last bot to find the new IP after only 14 days - my old site was then never visited again.
a site like yours which has been up for 5 years will have some good inbound links, so the spiders should find you very quickly.
i _love_ the dedicated server now. the only people on it are ourselves and 20 odd clients of ours. the speed of it is incredible (2.2 ghz + 1 gig ram), allthough we are doubling both of those this winter to allow for more traffic and dynamic pages next year.
go for it! :-)
To answer one question, yes I am looking at a managed dedicated server, it is easier overall what with time differences, location and know how.
The machine I am looking at is roughly this :
Single Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
Red Hat/Apache OS
512 KB cache
512 MB DDR2100 RAM (will up this to 1 GB min)
40 GB ULTRA ATA/133 (am considering upping this to 80GB)
100 MBps Bay Networks Ethernet Card
Integrated S3 Pro Savage8 32MB DDR AGP 4X
8 IP Addresses (Unlimited domains with name-based hosting)
1500 GB Transfer Per Month
Multi-Homed OC-12 Tier-1 Fiber Connections (Cogent Free)
EXT3 File System Architecture
Am now also considering Raid after reading the responses to the posts.
Any thoughts?
ADD IN:
How important is Load Balancing and why would I need it? It is not cheap at US$ 150 or so per month extra.
[edited by: Visit_Thailand at 8:45 am (utc) on Sep. 13, 2003]
smp + raid server using branded
older technology
We're not experts at running webserver software, as hosting is not our business. But hardware is :-)
Even my desktops are smp + raid
Just the fact that they are in a RAID doesn't mean anything. RAID as opposed to what? RAID 0 is a different beast to RAID 1... and there are others + you could have combinations.
The SMP (Sym. Multi Processor) for desktops is not very wise. Most programs run slower on a dual processor than a single processor, unless they are designed for SMP. So while it may make your home PC sound very fast it is in fact probably slower than single CPU, cheap, badly put-together clones :-)
[webmasterworld.com...]
Don't trust every salesman you speak to plumsauce ;-)
but now am on scsi and it is suppose to be better than IDE
SCSI used to be the ONLY hard disks anybody would consider for servers. Since then IDE has come a long way, improved dramatically in speed and there's the new Serial ATA that is even better than IDE.
However, as SCSI is still the main type of disk used in higher end servers they tend to be made very durable. Our experience of MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) do have the SCSIs far ahead of the IDE. They are very expensive though.
512 MB DDR2100 RAM (will up this to 1 GB min)
40 GB ULTRA ATA/133
There doesn't seem to be any redundancy there. I would ask what the backup is. Add RAID 1 if they don't already have something in place.
512 kb cache on the processor is standard (I don't know why they keep mentioning it - like they are doing you a favour), the graphics is low end but you don't need any more for a server, and only you can decide if 1500 GB is too much or too litte.
Yes, and some people will walk into Dixons to buy a PC because they can't bear the prospect of doing the research to find out what's best for THEIR needs
the subject is servers. there are many useful features
and services that are common place on branded servers that
are not available in clones. seen hotwap pci card
capabilities in a clone lately? remote access at the
post level? 3 year on-site, 4 hour response time?
Just the fact that they are in a RAID doesn't mean anything. RAID as opposed to what? RAID 0 is a different beast to RAID 1... and there are others + you could have combinations
if you remember, i had already dismissed raid 0. if you
must know, i use compaq raid cards with battery backed
cache and compaq hotswap chassis for my disk subsystems.
The SMP (Sym. Multi Processor) for desktops is not very wise. Most programs run slower on a dual processor than a single processor, unless they are designed for SMP.
again, the subject is servers, which have quite different
requirements from desktop programs. there are always
more than one execution path competing for cpu resources.
however, smp for desktop systems creates a much more
responsive system during stress. besides, the real benefit
of workstation class systems is the throughput of the
memory subsystems.
Don't trust every salesman you speak to plumsauce
i don't. i get to talk to the engineers and a dedicated
account rep.
++++
there are many useful featuresAnd you believe that you can't get this elsewhere? I'm afraid you've been talking to the salesmen too much my friend :-) Perhaps they call themselves account managers now, or even "dedicated account managers/reps" :-)
and services that are common place on branded servers that
are not available in clones. seen hotwap pci card
capabilities in a clone lately? remote access at the
post level? 3 year on-site, 4 hour response time
I think maybe we are not agreed on what a "clone" is. It's not necessarily put together by a local computer shop. Contact me via sticky for some of the big server manufacturers who fall outside of what's known as the "branded" market. You'll get a lot more for a lot less. And yes, all of the above is available. ::: shaking head :::: I can't believe they told you that 3 year on-site, 4 hr response time is exclusive to their SLA.
the real benefit of workstation class systems is the throughput of the memory subsystemsIf you meant quantity of RAM, I agree. If you meant speed of the RAM I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that conclusion, because server RAM is known for the fact that it is slow.
Don't get me wrong. I admire people who take the time to find out about the technology before adopting it, and you obviously have asked a lot of questions. From your description I have no doubt that you have excellent systems. My advice to Visit Thailand was that branded is not necessarily best for everyone and that one needs to research what's best for his own needs.
Visit Thailand, review your hosting choices thoroughly, then narrow them down to a handfull that meets your specifications.
Then do a quick check in Google for the final candidates:
[host name] complaints
[host name] $ucks
You'll find out in a hurry how their current and former customers feel about each host company's service.
Visit Thailand, review your hosting choices thoroughly, then narrow them down to a handfull that meets your specifications
I agree completely. The quality of service issue cannot be stressed too strongly. Also, being able to get through to first line support quickly does not really mean very much. At some hosts the "first line" support staff don't know an IP from a pot of tea, it can be very frustrating.
[host name] $ucks
Good idea! Also "problems with hn", "never use hn", "hn trouble" etc.
I think maybe we are not agreed on what a "clone" is. It's not necessarily put together by a local computer shop.
The overlap in definition has no effect. I define clone,
in x86 servers, as anything not made by Compaq/HP,IBM,Dell.
And I'm not really happy with either HP or Dell.
I can't believe they told you that 3 year on-site, 4 hr response time is exclusive to their SLA.
Even the chosen vendors have a hard time meeting these
terms in real life. And they have worldwide service
organisations.
You'll get a lot more for a lot less.
Not really. Especially if you watch the secondary market.
On the new market, last offering was 1%/month lease on
a 24 month lease. Zero obligation at end of lease, or
turnaround for new equipment on same terms. Of course,
there are minimum volumes that not everyone can meet.
But this effectively means a $5000.00 server can be
had for $50.00/month, or $1200.00 over it's lifetime.
True, this is buying market share. But it's not my problem.
If you meant speed of the RAM I'd be interested in knowing how you came to that conclusion
Getting off-topic, but I'm sure if give it some thought
you can find the references to multiple memory controllers.
++++
If big multinationals with large number of offices can't meet response time promises beacause the nearest office is a six hour drive away then my advice to Visit_Thailand will be to go with a good local company who can meet the response time he requires.
Visit_Thailand, I've stickied you with a link to information on load balancing. Hope that helps.
