apple vs. amd web server

[Korialstrasza]

Serving a few thousand (~15-20k) mysql/php hits a day, which do you guys think would be better?

xserve
dual 1.33ghz G4
2gb ram

vs.

dual opteron 242
2gb ram

They're pretty simple queries on sql, lots of basic SELECTS and stuff. I like the idea of the xserve because it's so reliable and stable.

any thoughts or further specification needed?

Thanks.

 

[movax]

Threading is of serious value to you in this case, so if you go the Opteron route, you'd want 265s+, not 242s. And note that your server will be as stable as the software you load on it, assuming the hardware is sound and in proper working order.

 

[Xenarchy]

seems kind of overkill for 20k/hits.

However, I'd go with AMD over Apple just on availability of parts if something goes wrong.

 

[draconius]

are you going to be custom building the opteron system?

how much reliability does this system need?

what kind of support can you offer if you are custom building the opteron system, versus the support contracts that you can get from apple for the x-serve?


stuff like that should also influence your decision quite a bit, imo

Personally, I would go with dual-dual core opterons and plenty of ram (2-8GB), along with 4x 15krpm ultra 320 hard drives, in probably 2x RAID1 arrays for the OS and the other for www / db stuff

of course, that is quite spendy -- if you are on a budget,

I would definitely recommend dual opterons (246's arent that much more), and depending on the need-for-speed, 2-4GB of ram, along with a motherboard that is NUMA capable -- probably a Tyan Thunder k8we or supermicro H8DCE.

I am no expert though -- read through other threads in this forum and the web/programming forum for good ideas on the horsepower you would need for your specific application

 

[mikeblas]

It's hard for me to understand how you'd jump from "(~15-20k) mysql/php hits a day" and "pretty simple queries on sql, lots of basic SELECTS and stuff" to such specific recommendations, draconious.

Can you share more of your thought process?

 

[draconius]

Well, I figured that if he will be doing alot of mysql transactions, he is definitely going to need alot of cpu horsepower, and on a webserver/db server, that horsepower will be greatly augmented by having a large amount of ram. And if you are going to be writing to disk alot (likely, what with log files and database transactions being the most intensive), you definitely are going to want some fast hard drives.

Like I said though, that's just what I would do, and I am by no means an expert.

I still think the biggest factors that come into play is whether the opteron system is custom built or not, and what kind of support contract it can come with in comparison to the Xserve.

 

[movax]

For a mission critical server, I'd go with a large builder + support contract over my ego telling me "Psssh, you can build a better server cheaper" if not only to cover my ass when it eventually starts failing. Let the support contract you paid for take care of the hardware, and take the brunt of managmental anger!

 

[unhappy_mage]

Serving a few thousand (~15-20k) mysql/php hits a day, which do you guys think would be better?

That's only one hit every 4 seconds (on average, of course). Are you running something that's hitting limits now and looking to upgrade, or is this a new application? How long is the worst-case page load time on your dev box? For a load that small I'd look into buying time on shared hosting rather than your own machine - they've got the big power backup, huge pipe, and such that you can't afford by yourself.

 

[mikeblas]

Like I said though, that's just what I would do, and I am by no means an expert.

And that's fine; we're all learning. I'm trying to figure out how you got to that decision. "SELECTS and what not" aren't transactions—they're read only. Plenty of memory would be great, so the database server can have a nice big cache. But are those expensive disks really necessary?

You even mentioned a quantity of disks to use, and I'm not sure how you know the data size of the database or the web server's page space from what's been posted here. How do you know 4 drives will cut it? Why would you use two fast and expensive drives on the OS, when that drive isn't likely to see much I/O at all?

I still think the biggest factors that come into play is whether the opteron system is custom built or not, and what kind of support contract it can come with in comparison to the Xserve.

I'd tend to agree, particularly if the machine is important. But even if Korialstrasza buys from an OEM, he needs to know what to order.

 

[Yonzie]

Don't over-spend yourself.
An Sun X2100 (or similar) with a Opteron 246, 1GB of memory and soft-RAID will do just fine with that load.

 

[Korialstrasza]

This is a school application to manage teacher's information like classes and assignments, files, etc. It's for a couple dozen schools (middle to high) ranging from 2000-3000 in population. About 700-1100 uniqes daily from each. 99% of those hits are to the teacher's class pages which simply grab assignments and stuff from the database. Nothing too complex at all.

Ultimately, I'm probably just going to rent somewhere because it's more reliable (or less of a hassle if something goes wrong). I'm exploring colocation though. The opteron system would be OEM, and I would be able to provide the datacenter with extra parts in case of failures.

What would be better? Building OEM (which I'm definitely capable of doing) and providing lots of spare parts? Or buying from dell or hp and letting them do the fixing? Am I correct in that building OEM would be faster but cost more (pay the DC to repair) and otherwise take longer to send back to company for repair, but cheaper?

I'm on a shared plan, but I'm just looking into the future a bit for when I do outgrow this plan.

Is it possible to explain in brief why sun's sparc cpu's are so much less in # of mhz? What are they offering that other faster cpus aren't?

 

[Korialstrasza]

how about a couple of athlon mps? They're going pretty cheap on ebay -- ~$120 / 2xMP1800s and ~$150 for the mobo

Edit: Hm, 2 opteron 240s are going for just as much, even less.

 

[ndruw]

This is a school application to manage teacher's information like classes and assignments, files, etc. It's for a couple dozen schools (middle to high) ranging from 2000-3000 in population. About 700-1100 uniqes daily from each. 99% of those hits are to the teacher's class pages which simply grab assignments and stuff from the database. Nothing too complex at all.

Ultimately, I'm probably just going to rent somewhere because it's more reliable (or less of a hassle if something goes wrong). I'm exploring colocation though. The opteron system would be OEM, and I would be able to provide the datacenter with extra parts in case of failures.

What would be better? Building OEM (which I'm definitely capable of doing) and providing lots of spare parts? Or buying from dell or hp and letting them do the fixing? Am I correct in that building OEM would be faster but cost more (pay the DC to repair) and otherwise take longer to send back to company for repair, but cheaper?

I'm on a shared plan, but I'm just looking into the future a bit for when I do outgrow this plan.

Is it possible to explain in brief why sun's sparc cpu's are so much less in # of mhz? What are they offering that other faster cpus aren't?

if you do colo, IMO this may be a situation where load-balancing the SQL work on a bunch of smaller, cheaper servers may be a better idea (in case one would happen to go down).

 

[XOR != OR]

For a mission critical server, I'd go with a large builder + support contract over my ego telling me "Psssh, you can build a better server cheaper" if not only to cover my ass when it eventually starts failing. Let the support contract you paid for take care of the hardware, and take the brunt of managmental anger!

Interesting note: I took that route for pretty much the same reasons. CYA and all that.

Turns out, however, that I can keep a box up better than a large vendor can. And at the end of the day, that's all that's important as far as i'm concerned.

 

[dualblade]

since that doesn't seem like much load, it sounds like you'd be ok with a single processor. if you want to be safe, get a 265 (dual core) and leave the second socket open. the 265 will probably be overkill already, but they've dropped alot in price and there's something to be said for multiple processors/cores. if you ever need to transition this server to something more demanding, you can drop in a second 265 at any point. in my mind, $300-$350 for a dual core processor is a good buy and gives you some room to expand. amd is charging basically the same amount for the 265 as they are for the desktop market's x2 3800+, which is practically unheard of when buying server parts.

 

[wetware_interface]

cover the basics

plenty of ram would be in the range of 2 GB as it isn't going to get hit very hard at all from your use scenario.

larger cache size would do you better than faster MHZ in your processor so you may want to investigate the xeon range as an alternative.

remember "no one ever got fired for buying Dell"

this simply means yeah you could keep on top of it better than Dell support. And you should keep on top of it. But if it does die you can call Dell and they'll come save your job with free replacement parts and service under your contract and management will see you did everything by the book.

basically your database requirments are a small amount of textual updates and a lot more reads on a 30-1 ratio or so. cpu cache in the 1 to 2 MB range and around 2GB of ram would be plenty. also raid 5 on the drives and you can get away with 10,000 rpm drives and even a software raid controller if you decide to go dual processor.

you could even go single processor and hardware raid 5. drive size is whatever you need to cover the usage pattern of the teachers material on the server to allow a few months storage from the looks of it.

 

[mikeblas]

plenty of ram would be in the range of 2 GB as it isn't going to get hit very hard at all from your use scenario.

Why not? I thought that database servers and web servers were very aggressive about caching pages (both kinds!) in memory to avoid disk I/O.

basically your database requirments are a small amount of textual updates and a lot more reads on a 30-1 ratio or so.

Where was this access pattern specified? Or is it just a guess?