[nflug] Server Specs - Need Some Comments

[Mark Musone]

As the others have mentioned, the next steps is to really understand your
application and to do load testing/benchmarking. I assume you have your php
application..test it..pound the heck out of it (apache's ab is a very good
tool) you need to determine your load capacity and system bottlenecks. that
can be done on essentially any system such as your test/development system
before you even get a dedicated server. The same goes for your database.
there are a number tools besides just writing a quick script to pound the
heck out of the database server. know the max number of queries per second
capacity for the system, using queries that are the same as will be in the
production environment. a single incorrect index will cause over a tenfold
decrease in performance. Using an incorrect algorithm will also cause a
significant performance decrease.

know your application inside and out..by completely knowing and
understanding your application, your system needs will usually present
itself.

My off the cuff response is IMHO a base need. you almost always want two
servers to separate web and database (OS tuning and resource needs are
conflicting between web and database needs). You generally want as much
memory as can be reasonably afforded for the DB. Db's like memory and will
use what you have. You also generally want SCSI for hardware raid and
performance. Yes, you can go sata and jimmy-rig it, but why? it's going to
be a production system. the last thing you want to do is be cheap about it
and then have a migration nightmare later on. 


-Mark




-----Original Message-----
From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
Frank Kumro
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:18 PM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: Re: [nflug] Server Specs - Need Some Comments

Mark,
 I meant "php issuing a search query to the db". Thanks for the help

On 2/2/06, Mark Musone <mmusone at shatterit.com> wrote:
> For this need, at the very least, you want 2 servers, one database and one
> web server. for the DB server, 4G memory, dual xeon cpu. you say you will
be
> using php for searching..what do you mean by that? do you mean php issuing
a
> search query to the db, or php actually doing manual searching (the latter
> would be very bad)
>
> ..thats my quick $.02 off the top of my head..
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf
Of
> Frank Kumro
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:10 PM
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Subject: [nflug] Server Specs - Need Some Comments
>
> I am working on a new contract and one priority is to set up a LAMP
> server. I have set up many before however this one will have 500,000
> records that are searchable in the MySQL database. Since I have never
> worked with this much data I was wondering if the LUG can give me some
> specs for the server. PHP4 will be used for searching unless the
> performance is horrible, but I will deal with that when I begin
> testing. What I was thinking for hardware is
> 1) SCSI drives
> 2) 2GB of ram (maybe more maybe less??)
> 3) 2 processors (Xeon, is 1 good enough?)
>
> As you can see I only have a vague idea. Thanks in advance guys!
> --
> Frank
> Shenanigans!!
> _______________________________________________
> nflug mailing list
> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>
> _______________________________________________
> nflug mailing list
> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>


--
Frank
Shenanigans!!
_______________________________________________
nflug mailing list
nflug at nflug.org
http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug

_______________________________________________
nflug mailing list
nflug at nflug.org
http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug