[plug] Web Server Specs

[Trevor Phillips]

Adrian Woodley wrote:
> G'Day all,
> 	 Its an important tmie in a young man's life when he gets to set up his
> first rack-mount web server. Having not done anything of this magnitude
> before I looking to the plug members for some guidance. The main questions
> I have are :-

I'm a bit behind on this thread, but here's my opinion (as someone who 
manages multiple webservers).

> 	Whats more important, RAM or Mhz?

RAM for most things. Depends how much DB/dynamic sites you have.

> 	Is RAID worth it?

Honestly, I haven't seen much advantage in performance granted by RAID, 
but it's worth it just for the added backup.

> 	Is one BA (Big Arse) server better than two smaller servers?

If you only have ONE server, then I'd say DEFINITELY get two smaller 
servers. Why? Because you can shift all your services onto one server, 
and bring the other down for maintenance, upgrades, tests, etc... Very 
important for webservers, since you're typically after 24x7x365 uptime.

Our primary webservers are two Dell 2400/2500 series machines. Dual CPU, 
RAID-1 HDD, 1 Gig RAM. On the slightly faster of the two we host our 
Production website, including dynamic app content (which is more & more 
common nowadays). On the other one (which is located in another building 
for further backup) we host the Development site where content providers 
play around, plus more batch-like processes like DB batch processes 
(data normalisation, etc...).

Each machine has its own IP. Each service on the machine also has its 
own IP, using IP aliasing. File content between the machine is 
replicated every five minutes using rsync. At any stage we can shift a 
services IP to the other machine. Both machines have MySQL as the local 
DB, set up to replicate BOTH ways, which is handy since Prod can access 
fast data, and Dev can thrash away processing the same set of data.

> 	Whats a good backup methodology?

Raid-1 gives you redundancy. Having two machines gives you redundancy. 
If the machines are in separate buildings/locations, it's even better.
We also do tape backups, mainly for a rough archival process, so if 
someone wants a file from 3 months ago, there's a CHANCE it's on tape.

> 	What kind of specs are required (ie Speed, RAM)?

Really depends on the load. Our slower one is a Dual 667 PIII, 1 Gig 
RAM. The other is a Dual 933 I think. (We bought 2 x 667's, but turned 1 
into an NT server, and used the new 933 for the main server). They cope 
with all sorts of load without breaking much of a sweat, even with the 
ton of dynamic content we throw about, and some DB thrashing. ^_^

We run Debian 2.2 (Stable/Potato) for system stability and ease of 
maintenance, with a few packages rebuilt from newer versions within the 
Potato environment.

We're only a Uni though, not a Slashdot. Load is relatively low, with a 
few ginormous spikes such as exam results, enrolments, etc...

-- 
. Trevor Phillips             -           http://jurai.murdoch.edu.au/ .
: Web Technical Administrator     -          T.Phillips at murdoch.edu.au :
| IT Services                        -              Murdoch University |
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