Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:30:20 -0600
Reply-To: Joshua Van Tol <jjvantol@USWEST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Joshua Van Tol <jjvantol@USWEST.NET>
Subject: Re: Is Gerry Really Dead?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19990212081421.0116ccc4@mail.abccom.bc.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
> Here is the situation:
>
> Gerry has Dual P90 CPUs - when it is doing LISTSERV the utilization is [on
> both CPUs] 75% or so. When doing a web search [both CPUs] it is pegged to
> 100% and it can usually never get the job done - thus times out.
Hm, sounds more like an inefficiently written search engine, than
anything else.
> There is 64MB on Gerry - there is on average 75 to 100 page faults per
> second so we need more memory.
Which might clear up the problem alltogether. More memory can often
make a huge difference in performance, particularly when the os has
support for caching of disk files in main memory.
>
> The solution is a faster box.
Not necessarily. Gerry must see about 100 incoming messages per day,
and sends those out to 700 subscribers. Thus it sends about 70000
messages per day. Each of these might contain 4K of text (except when
some fool trys to send out a picture, an html encoded email, GRRR.).
So we have bandwidth usage of ~270 MB/day, or a sustained rate of
~3.2 K/s. Hardly a challenge for even a puny 486. Of course, in
reality, traffic comes in bursts, but even a single 90 MHz pentium
should be able to handle approximately 1 MB/s continously, provided
the os and server software are efficiently written. Windows NT, and
most of the apps written for it, don't fall into this category.
> Another thing that bothers me is that there is no RAID array - which means
> if that hard drive dies - that's it! At volkswagen.org I am running two
> mirrored drives (RAID1) and I have had the unfortunate luck of one of those
> drives dieing (Western Digital) - the server kept on going even with a dead
> hard drive - 10 minutes of down time to replace the drive and away it went.
A raid array is a pretty good idea, but you still need to worry about
the possibility of the OS going nuts and thrashing the file system.
Raid or no raid, the damage will be the same in that situation. The
only thing that'll help there is a tape backup system that is used
regularly.
> I see lots of good reasons why we should upgrade Gerry - Y2K is another
> issue as someone will have to set the clock on January 1 for it to function
> correctly - not a big issue but an issue none the less.
Whacha bet both linux and FreeBSD work around this?
> When I get to work this afternoon I will put together a system spec and our
> (ABC Communications) cost pricing on this box - I will also approach our
> distrubutor and see if they can do anything on the price - anyone object to
> an advertisement being on Gerry if we get a good deal on the box?
I do. I don't mind targeted list advertisements from vendors, but
outside commercial ads would be sickening. I get enough spam as it is.
Joshua Van Tol -- jjvantol@uswest.net
