TM Server

[Andrew Hammond]

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Teddy Mills wrote:
| I have selected no hardware or software yet.
|
| Below are my ideas, please read them and reply to the TLUG list or myself
| with your
| ideas and advice.  I thank you all, I'll be sure to be at the next
meeting!
| I missed the  last one just 2 days ago! Ack!
|
| /teddy
|
| PS:
| I know O'Reilly has a book out called Managing RAID on Linux. Im getting
| that book asap.
|
|
| *********
| FUNCTION:
| *********
| To build a LINUX MYSQL4 production server to handle from 100-5000
small(<1k)
| database transactions daily.

MySQL is an unsuitable choice for serious database work. You should care
about your data's integrity if you're going to bother collecting it in
the first place. For a list of examples of things that MySQL does which
will cause you difficulties, take a look at

http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html

Postgres is not much more difficult to administer, offers superior
performance for non-trivial queries, and the ability to do some fairly
complex reporting work. For small datasets like what you're planning to
work with, performance will be a relative non-issue, but the support for
server side functions (including aggregates) is a huge win.

| Mission critical. Downtime to be minimized as much as possible during the
| day.  Nothing else, thats it.

So 9 to 5 uptime required? That shouldn't be at all hard to achieve.

| A system that is as bulletproof as possible, against downtime, but doesnt
| cost the moon.

Quantify your budget. If downtime really isn't acceptable then you need
to look into enterprise level hardware. If you've got evenings and
weekends for maintenance, then you can do this on commodity hardware.

| *****************
| OS and software:
| *****************
| Redhat Enterprise AS or Fedora Core 2 ?
| I am open to any OS, but I am leaning towards using Fedora Core 2.
| I dont see anything in Enterprise Server AS that will help me.

The support contract and commitment to platform stability (ie RH will
backport important bug-fixes into existing library versions instead of
upgrading the library) are valuable if you're going for serious stability.

| All software will be the latest open source versions of
| MySQL4, maybe Samba compiled from tar sources.

If your application is commercial then MySQL4 is _not_ free.

| ***********
| RAID
| ***********
| I am going to use a SCSI RAID and SCSI drives, so I am not going to
use any
| software RAIDs or IDE drives.  I dont want to have to boot into Linux just
| to get access
| to the RAID drives, if possible.
|
| I would like the Linux OS to be inside the RAID, but if that is not
| possible,
| then just the RAID to hold the MySQL data in say in /dev/sdb1.
| That means I assume my booting Linux OS would reside on say a 4GB IDE.
hmmm.
|
| I thought about RAID 5, but I think I am going with a RAID1. RAID1 is
secure
| reliable and fast. Just kinda slow on the writes. Im okay with that. A
RAID
| 5
| means dropping 1 or 2 G's on the extra large capacity SCSI drives.

RAID1+0 is the better solution. The 10kRPM WD Raptor SATA drives are
excellent value. Lennart mentioned the 3ware controllers, and I have to
second that. They're excellent hardware. However you can get better
price/performance from the highpoint raid controllers. And they're also
well supported in the kernel.

Personally, I stay away from RAID5 whenever possible.

| Im going with a SCSI RAID1, unless convinced otherwise.
| I am leaning towards the MEGARAID 1600 SCSI RAID CONTROLLER and 3 80GB
SCSI
| drives.
|
| I am kind of stuck, maybe I should use a IDE SATA-RAID1 solution from
| PROMISE.
| If a IDE-based system can saturate our internet connection why bother with
| SCSI?

Reliability. Check out the MTTF on the drives you're looking at.

| ************
| RAID FORMAT
| ************
| Since I only have 2 drives to worry about both will fit inside the PC,
so no
| external
| closure is needed.
|
| However a RAID enclosure, with hotswappable and standbys would be better.
| Even better
| would be a cheap, but decent  hot-swappable system that does RAID1, but I
| cant seem to find any.

3ware sells an enclosure that fits in 2 or maybe it was 3 standard
external 5.25" drive bays.

- --
Andrew Hammond    416-673-4138    ahammond-swQf4SbcV9C7WVzo/KQ3Mw at public.gmane.org
Database Administrator, Afilias Canada Corp.
CB83 2838 4B67 D40F D086 3568 81FC E7E5 27AF 4A9A
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