Does anyone have some seriously big hosting needs?

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Does anyone have some seriously big hosting needs?
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jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Mar 26, 10 10:03 pm Post subject: Does anyone have some seriously big hosting needs?
Just counted up the number of CPU cores we have got allocated on the system, its 24 cores, which coincidentally is also the number of physical cores currently installed. As of next week the core count will be doubled On the memory front we have 28gb of RAM absolutely idle currently, next week another 60gb will be installed. The spare disk space numbers are equally vast.

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 6:20 am Post subject:
Very impressive. What type and speed of disks do you have - that sounds like the only potential bottleneck. Can you run Windows 2008 / IIS / SQLServer somewhere in that lot? What bandwidth do you have to the Internet? What happens if it crashes? Is there a backup server?

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 8:55 am Post subject:
The disks are RAID5 or RAID10 and 10 or 15 krpm. All will be on the same subnet and running a snapshot system, so that in the event of failure they can be moved around quickly, in some cases transparently with the features of XenServer.

Mary-Jane

Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 18397
Location: The Fishing Strumpet is from Ceredigion in West Wales

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 8:58 am Post subject:
Oh crapsicles. I've wandered into that parallel universe again...

snowball
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 6246
Location: swindon

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 9:02 am Post subject:
Don't worry Mary-Jane, it's quite safe here. You will probably have a constant headache though.

RichardW

Joined: 24 Aug 2006
Posts: 8443
Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 9:27 am Post subject:
So why are you upgrading now if its already over spec?

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 9:46 am Post subject:

Many reasons.

1) Some of the capacity is on a subnet I don't control. I want to move everything to one I do. This makes it much more possible to deal with server issues.

2) Some of the capacity is older Xeons, but that's still 16 powerful cores that can be put to good use.

3) A single 16 core server with 48gb of ram is a hack of a lot of capacity, but is hardly going to fail over to the 16 cores of those older Xeons. Hence buying another 16 core server with another 48gb.

4) Fantastic performance is a good selling point!

5) It is easier to sell capacity if you actually have it!

Mary-Jane

Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 18397
Location: The Fishing Strumpet is from Ceredigion in West Wales

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 10:08 am Post subject:

Snowball wrote:

Don't worry Mary-Jane, it's quite safe here. You will probably have a constant headache though.

Is it all the techie version of willy-waving Snowball?

snowball
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 6246
Location: swindon

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 10:32 am Post subject:
You got it M-J. Although it is in the guise of touting for business, by saying he is the bestest.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 11:51 am Post subject:
A.

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 1:09 pm Post subject:
So can you actually run Windows Server VMs on this mega-machine? I'd hate to see all that capacity being used just to run Linux.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 1:23 pm Post subject:
The 5 servers are all running XenServer, but one of them is a Dell 2850 which just about predates what is needed for XenServer to run windows. But 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 1:47 pm Post subject:
I have a 2850, but it won't run Windows HyperV unfortunately, no virtualization on the processors.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 7:56 pm Post subject:

orangepippin wrote:

I'd hate to see all that capacity being used just to run Linux.

oldish chris

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 10 10:31 pm Post subject:

orangepippin wrote:

So can you actually run Windows Server VMs on this mega-machine? I'd hate to see all that capacity being used just to run Linux.

I suspect the reason for sticking with Linux is to be sure he can upgrade his hardware without having to change OS. So should he need to increase the number of CPUs, say to 1.6 million, then Linux will still work fine.

Quote:

Sequoia will be based on future IBM BlueGene technology and use 1.6 million IBM POWER processors and 1.6 petabytes of memory,

Sequoia will run the Linux operating system.

https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/26599.wss

But then spending that much on hardware, best save a bit on the OS

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