Re: VAR System Specs

[Micah Yoder <LYoder@cyberis.net>]

> Well Chris had to cancel on me for lunch today.  He did tell me though
> that it was basically a done deal.  All we need to do now is spec the box.
> Apparently they've got a number of machines that they used at the Atlanta
> Linux Showcase, which of course they can't sell now... :-)

Good deal.

> Figure we will get a single processor 400-450Mhz P2, which will be
> upgradeable to dual processors (SMP still isn't rock solid remember).
> 
> I suspect we could use:
> 
> 256MB RAM (How memory intensive is mySQL or PosgreSQL?  Should we ask for
>                 512MB?  The more memory, the more we can cache the DB's!)

I *think* 256MB would be plenty.  But if they give us more, we won't
complain.  :-)  You're right about the DB caching, but I think a little
more disk activity isn't that big of a deal.  We won't be able to RAM
cache it all anyway.

PostgreSQL doesn't take all that much memory.  At least not on my
current test system, but it isn't being accessed very much.

> 1.5 GB for OS/tools/swap/system logs
> .5 GB for web server logs
> 1 GB for "content" like the LDP & the SQL DB backend for it
> 4 GB for the ht://dig database (rule of thumb is 4x indexed content)
> 1 GB for message boards & database (we can probably use SWISH or Glimpse
>         for this which has much lower disk requirements for it's DB)
> 10 GB for RPM Repository Mirror http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/
> 2 GB "play area" for compiling stuff, etc.
> - ------
> 20GB Disk (wow!)
> 
> Obviously if we don't do the RPM Repsotory mirror, we can reduce our disk
> space requirements in half, so that would be the first thing we cut if VAR
> can't give us that much.

Hmm.  That web page says there's 41Gig of stuff there, not 10! 
Actually, I wouldn't consider this essential at all.  It would just put
more load on our server, taking away from the primary function.

> And what about RAID?  We will get daily incrementals and weekly fulls
> thanks to NaviSite.  Probably the best thing to do is ask for a spare disk
> that we can restore data to in the event of a failure.  Also, if we need
> 512MB of RAM, the lowest end server that supports that also comes with
> RAID.

RAID would be nice if we can get it.  But hopefully we'll be mirroring
to other machines, in which case one could be restored from the other.

> Anyways to give you an idea what we're talking about I checked out their
> site:
> 
> A 1000 server, with 1 450Mhz processor, 256MB RAM, and 22GB via 5 4.5GB
> disks (Seagate Cheetah's) is about $7,195 list
> 
> A 3000 server, with 1 450Mhz, 512MB RAM, and 45/36GB disk (straight/RAID5)
> via Quantum Atlas III 9.1 GB disks is about $9,895 list
> 
> (both disk systems are ultra-wide)
> 
> It looks like to me that we ask for a 3000.  If we get a 1000 we're
> limited to 18GB of usable space (assuming one disk is a spare) and there's
> no upgrade path to 512MB of RAM should we need it.  If we end up getting a
> 1000, then we just don't do the RPM Repository which isn't critical, but
> would be a *nice* feature, especially since there aren't any mirrors on
> the west coast of the US.
> 
> Comments??  Am I asking for too much?

Yeeesh.... that stuff costs money!

Question:  If we get a VAR system, will that mean we don't do anything
with NaviSite?  I thought VAR wanted it to be at their HQ.