Forum OpenACS Q&A: Hardware suggestions

Posted by Walter Smith on 08/04/00 08:07 PM

Does anyone have any specific recommendations or can anyone point me
to a discussion of hardware for running OpenACS? It seems like there
are currently no satisfactory hosting options, so I assume I will have
to set up my own box. Are there any new solutions I might not be
aware of?

I will be looking to set up my first server, and I'm trying to find
some balance between price, performance, and reliability, with price
being somewhat more important than the other two at this point. Does
anyone have any comments on/experience with Compaq Proliant hardware?

2: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 08/04/00 10:57 PM

Compaq has a history of building machines with proprietary components, and folks like Dell use their own motherboards, which makes fixing them a pain and expensive if you don't buy service.

So I prefer machines with more vanilla components, ones that I can dash down to Fry's and replace if they fry (bad pun, sorry).

I should write a FAQ on this, but unfortunately hardware recommendations have to be updated frequently.

Here's a site that has tons and tons of information on components, etc: http://www.tdl.com/~netex. Click on "motherboards" and you'll get a list of motherboards with features and prices and they only carry parts that are good quality. In that list, click on the part name and you'll be sent to the manufacturer's web page on the part.

Very useful.

If you just want to run a moderately busy personal site or the like, any 'ole celeron, 128MB or 256MB RAM, a couple of UDMA disks forced to run in DMA mode (Linux usually defaults to PIO), a decent DEC Tulip-based or Intel or 3Com NIC and your on your way, no sweat.

Or buy a low-end machine from VA Linux or the like (or NetExpress, the site I listed above, though they seem pretty much booked these days).

3: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Walter Smith on 08/04/00 11:52 PM

Thanks for the response, Don. To refine my earlier inquiry, the thing I'm having the most trouble with is figuring out the best disk setup. Tell me if my thinking is off on this, but I think I would much rather add processors or RAM as traffic increases than reconfigure my disk array.

I saw a post on one of the other forums outlining a pretty high-volume configuration, but I wonder if someone knows if there is a more economical way to run RAID 1 and how many disks would provide the best price/performance value running OpenACS on Linux. Any specifics would be really helpful and appreciated.

4: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 08/05/00 01:07 AM

Well, unless you symlink index tables to different drives, etc by hand PG currently puts all its files on one drive. This will change in the future, though.

On my own SMP machine I'm just running software RAID 1, on two SCSI drives, with an Adaptec 2840UW controller. I already had a dual processor Supermicro that I got along with a bunch of film from a friend for $100, if I were buying new I'd get a board with the same controller (or the new SCSI160 Adaptec chip) onboard. If I didn't already have a pile of NICs I'd buy a board with integrated DEC Tulip or Intel ethernet, too.

Anyway, if you do want to run a RAID 1 array and do in-machine backups, my configuration (RAID on SCSI, a nice $100 UDMA disk drive for backup) seems reasonable enough. Right now, if you shop you can get IBM's Ultrastar 9.1 GB UW2 7200K RPM drives for about 200, they come with a five year warranty and are perhaps the most reliable drives out there.

RH 6.2's installation program will set up RAID 1 for data disks for you. I put the system on the UDMA drive, at some point I need to replicate it on another UDMA drive so I can come back up quickly if it dies on me, getting RAID 1 up on the root partition's a bit of a pain and I don't mind being down a day if things break.

So, that's my two cents - a couple of moderately priced SCSI drives, a motherboard with onboard SCSI or and Adaptec 2840UW or the latest 160 controller (if Linux supports it already) and software RAID 1.

The 2840 costs about $275 OEM, or did I should say, might be dropping in price now that the SCSI 160 controller's out.

5: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by mark rohn on 08/07/00 07:11 PM

If your looking for great inexpensive hardware have a look at ebay.com under COMPUTERS->HARDWARE->WORKSTATIONS,SERVERS. There are some great deals on complete servers, in fact a friend of mine just purchased a Compaq 6000 server complete with raid 5-U2W controller, 284Meg of ECC ram,quad p-pro 512K and Red Hat Linux certified for $1500 U.S.

6: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Walter Smith on 08/07/00 08:59 PM

Mark, how does your friend like the Compaq equipment? I was actually looking at some of those systems, which seemed like pretty good deals to me, so I was wondering how they are. Has your friend got it up and running with Linux?

7: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by mark rohn on 08/07/00 11:43 PM

Walter, my friend (Jason) has been running slackware on his Compaq 6000-quad Ppro-512K without any problems. He's been bragging for three weeks about the speed and flexibility of the machine (lucky bastard). In fact Jason installed VM ware and now runs Windows NT on the Compaq 6000 under Linux--- (computer nerds with to much time.) Compaq certified the 6000 under Red Hat 6.1 so 6.2 should work fine, also if you can find a model 6000 with a support contract Compaq will support you under Linux! So far the machine has been running full blast for three weeks in a production environment, at one of the major universities in Toronto Canada. One thing you should be aware of before you start looking, make sure that all the manuals and disks are included, installation and setup on the Compaq 6000 is a bit strange and requires some effort. If you can get your hands on one of these things you will not be disappointed, the Pentium pro is Intel's most stable and reliable chip so far. I'm running five-clone Ppro servers 24/7 with zero downtime and zero problems for the last six months.

Thanks
Mark Rohn

8: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Chris Mauritz on 08/10/00 05:43 AM

Re: compaq

Compaq servers definitely work OK with Linux. There are quirks and one often has to tweak bios settings to get things like the IO APIC working properly.

However......

For the same or less amount of money, you are MUCH better off buying comparable gear from linux-friendly shops. You get higher densities (1U and 2U, rather than 3U and 5U), cheaper prices, and commodity parts when you need replacements.

Check out:

www.rackmount.com
www.linuxstore.com
www.penguincomputing.com
www.valinux.com

All make nice systems. I like dealing with the rackmount.com people, but that just happens to be my personal preference.

Cheers,

9: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Walter Smith on 08/10/00 08:50 PM

Chris,

thanks for another perspective and some good links. One of the things that initially attracted my attention to the Compaq servers was that there seemed to be a good supply of used equipment. I've seen the prices for the new Compaq systems, and that is simply out of the question. I often purchase used components, as I usually try to avoid the absolute latest technology, and I believe that it has been a cost-effective strategy.

At the same time, I would like to support hardware vendors that more specifically cater to the OSS development and user communities. One thing that would help me, and hopefully others, is to see some specific configurations that other people are running. I think it might make a nice addition to the discussion forum (or the site) to have a form where people could enter in their hardware configurations -- maybe have it broken down into the various subsystems and components -- and their comments, what they have seen as strengths and weaknesses, purchasing recommendations, etc. I would be happy to do the programming, if that is needed.

Some of the features that most often seem (to me) to be proprietary are system recovery and (disk/controller) subsystem redundancy. Again, speaking for myself while assuming that there are a lot of other people in the same boat, I am pretty comfortable evaluating and putting together the mainboard + CPU combination and components for a workstation, but I have little or no experience assembling and maintaining a system for high availability. Since costs can quickly balloon out of control if you just throw money at the problem, it would be particularly helpful to get information in that area.

Although I found Philip Greenspun's treatment of some of the Web hardware challenges and solutions very informative, his specific focus on high-end Sun and HP systems prevented it from being completely practical for people using other, more commonly available, equipment. Having a lot of experience building individual workstations and computers on the Intel/AMD/Cyrix/etc. platform(s), I feel that they could provide, hopefully, more cost-effective solutions and a more flexible upgrade path for those of us who are, literally, trying to bootstrap it.

10: Response to Hardware suggestions (response to 1)

Posted by Walter McGinnis on 02/20/01 05:48 AM

I just dug up this and another old thread
(https://openacs.org/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0000Pq)
up about hardware recommendations. Does anyone have
any updates?

I have pretty similar needs to what Walter Smith was originally
looking for, although I have more experience with ACS classic
and want to setup a porting environment as well (Oracle for
reference use).

I would love to hear of a specific setups that people have. I'm
looking for something affordable in the short term that leaves
plenty of room to expand later.

I'll check ou the leads discussed here. Thanks.