Web server howto - sucks.

gmat · 10-21-2002, 03:42 AM

Hardware Analysis has done a "how-to" about building a "high-perf" web server:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1549/

Of course i rushed to read it, hoping to get real good info.
Bad luck - this is an informercial.
1 - the architecture choice. Intel (or AMD) based machines are not suited to "high-performance" web serving. Sun or IBM mainframes (or even mid-range servers) are still far ahead in terms of I/O bandwidth, scalability, response times. Oh and compare manpower needed to maintain a 500-hosts x86 cluster against a (more expensive, similar performance) pair of Sun mainframes.
2 - the I/O subsystem. They base their choice on arguments like 'adaptec RAID controllers suck' (which is true btw) - not a reason to discard SCSI RAID altogether. More BS like 'SCSI runs hot' which is no longer true nowadays (15K drives dont run hotter than IDE 7.2K). Try to hot-swap IDE disks... Or to run RAID 50...
3 - the OS choice. Linux is a good choice indeed, but basing the comparison on W2K pro (which is the *DESKTOP* version, not the server) ain't really fair. Besides Redhat distro aint really suited to server environment (less than average security, hard to strip down etc.)
4 - as told by a few slashdot readers - at ~1000 visitors their server was already sluggish, at ~2000 it was nearly dead, and after that it was totally slashdotted. Bye bye, "high-performance" web server...

I could carry on but i feel it's enough.
*PLONK*

(sound made by the "ignore web site" button - this one has joined THG and [H] in my blacklist)

g.l.amour · 10-21-2002, 04:07 AM

would it be good for a small performing webserver? if so, maybe their title is a bit offtopic, but might still be interesting to read. if it was crap alltogether, then let me know, won't waste my time on it then... thx

gmat · 10-21-2002, 04:23 AM

Their site is rather simple (static contents, very few php scripts, no real heavy-load duty) and it crumbled at 2000 visitors.

So, for the purposes of serving web pages (or ftp, or games) to your friends, this kind of machine is OK, but so is your home PC. And yet, it's not mission critical, so forget the SMP and take a single P4/XP (2200+ or more) and no RAID.
For a *real* website or any heavy-load, mission-critical server, this is total crap.

10-21-2002, 03:42 AM	#1
gmat Thermophile Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: France Posts: 1,221	Web server howto - sucks. Hardware Analysis has done a "how-to" about building a "high-perf" web server: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1549/ Of course i rushed to read it, hoping to get real good info. Bad luck - this is an informercial. 1 - the architecture choice. Intel (or AMD) based machines are not suited to "high-performance" web serving. Sun or IBM mainframes (or even mid-range servers) are still far ahead in terms of I/O bandwidth, scalability, response times. Oh and compare manpower needed to maintain a 500-hosts x86 cluster against a (more expensive, similar performance) pair of Sun mainframes. 2 - the I/O subsystem. They base their choice on arguments like 'adaptec RAID controllers suck' (which is true btw) - not a reason to discard SCSI RAID altogether. More BS like 'SCSI runs hot' which is no longer true nowadays (15K drives dont run hotter than IDE 7.2K). Try to hot-swap IDE disks... Or to run RAID 50... 3 - the OS choice. Linux is a good choice indeed, but basing the comparison on W2K pro (which is the DESKTOP version, not the server) ain't really fair. Besides Redhat distro aint really suited to server environment (less than average security, hard to strip down etc.) 4 - as told by a few slashdot readers - at ~1000 visitors their server was already sluggish, at ~2000 it was nearly dead, and after that it was totally slashdotted. Bye bye, "high-performance" web server... I could carry on but i feel it's enough. PLONK (sound made by the "ignore web site" button - this one has joined THG and [H] in my blacklist)

10-21-2002, 04:07 AM	#2
g.l.amour Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: on da case Posts: 933	would it be good for a small performing webserver? if so, maybe their title is a bit offtopic, but might still be interesting to read. if it was crap alltogether, then let me know, won't waste my time on it then... thx

10-21-2002, 04:23 AM	#3
gmat Thermophile Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: France Posts: 1,221	Their site is rather simple (static contents, very few php scripts, no real heavy-load duty) and it crumbled at 2000 visitors. So, for the purposes of serving web pages (or ftp, or games) to your friends, this kind of machine is OK, but so is your home PC. And yet, it's not mission critical, so forget the SMP and take a single P4/XP (2200+ or more) and no RAID. For a real website or any heavy-load, mission-critical server, this is total crap.

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