Dedicated server - is my server big enough?

[jbayabas]

This is my server's specs:

# Fujitsu PRIMERGY MX130 S2
# AMD Opteron™ 3280, 8 Cores, 8x 2.4 GHz
# 16 GB DDR3-RAM
# 2x 2,000 GB SATA II-HDD, 7.2k

Do you think it's big enough? I have high traffic sites. HOw much daily traffic / page views do you think the server can accommodate?

[Kendo]

None of our sites would be considered high usage especially when compared to some that I have read about here like 850,000 per month. But something that I have noticed is that serving web pages has a very low overhead. The performance of our servers is only affected when running web applications that use server-side software.

[topr8]

i've no idea!

however i serve 2 million pages a month with CONSIDERABLY less spec than that.

i run quite a few sites on the server but i've got highly optimised DB queries (and databases) and a hand crafted CMS, which is VERY specifically built for the exact purpose.

... i think if you use off the shelf software - CMS, Forums etc, they can be very resource hungry!

[jbayabas]

But do you consider this a big server? Let's say for 10 million page views a month?

[jbayabas]

Hey Top,
Can you share your my.cnf config for high traffic sites? I use my-huge.cnf. I don't know if I need to optimize it. Currently, my CPU usage is at 0.95%. I guess I'm still good. How high should be the CPU usage when I start to worry?

[topr8]

IMHO it is nothing to do with httpd.config

it is about the databases and how well optimised they are.

also the database calls

i've seen sites that make 20+ db calls per page, it is totally un-neccesairy, the queries need to be cleaned up.

with your specs i'd put all my databases into RAM (heap files) - well maybe not all, but the most important tables that are read from all the time. i'm also a big fan of stored procedures/routines they are stored in memory too,

as Kendo says it depends what you are doing, html files without db calls or heavy processign are easy to serve,

you need to look at caching as much as you can.

i don't serve 10 million pages but i think i could.

also - consider blocking robots and scrapers - (i'm sure you do, but if you crank it up and really go hard core at blocking, you'd be amazed at how much recources you save)

[jbayabas]

man, you're good. I don't understand your programming lingo. So I really have no clue how to optimize databases, queries, etc. Im just a web designer and don't have programming background.

Did you go to school for this? What course should I take to familiarize myself with server optimization and such?

[incrediBILL]

This question has no answer.

Reminds me of the old "Define the universe in 25 words or less, be specific yet concise"

[Kendo]

Maybe that's why no-one answered. But it had me thinking about how birds fly in the sky and fish swim in the sea. Web designers of the programming kind tend to create unattractive looking web sites (unless they use a Wordpress template) while web designers of the graphic design kind tend to create sites that are difficult to navigate.

[jbayabas]

I've optimized my DB and my server performance has improved. Thanks so much for the great suggestions.