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* Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-12 18:58 Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Pascal Cohen @ 2008-03-12 18:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: pgsql-performance
Hello, we plan to buy a dedicated server to host our database.
Here is the proposal I was given (with a second identical server fro
backup using log shipping):
=========================
IBM X3650 (This is a 2U server, can hold 8 Drives)
2 x QC Xeon E5450 (3.0GHz 12MB L2 1333MHz 80W)
8 x 2GB RAM (16GB total)
2.5" SAS Hotswap
ServeRAID-8K SAS Controller
8 x 73GB 15K 2.5" SAS Drive
CD/DVD Drive
Remote Supervisor Adapter II Slimline
Redundant Power
4 Year, 24x7 2hour support/warranty
=========================
I would like specialists advices.
If you need additional details, please let me know.
Thanks in advance for your help
Thank you
Pascal
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-12 19:23 Mark Lewis <mark.lewis@mir3.com>
parent: Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Mark Lewis @ 2008-03-12 19:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>; +Cc: pgsql-performance
What type of usage does it need to scale for? How many concurrent
connections? What size database? Data warehousing or OLTP-type
workloads? Ratio of reads/writes? Do you care about losing data?
One question that's likely going to be important depending on your
answers above is whether or not you're getting a battery-backed write
cache for that ServeRAID-8K.
-- Mark Lewis
On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 19:58 +0100, Pascal Cohen wrote:
> Hello, we plan to buy a dedicated server to host our database.
> Here is the proposal I was given (with a second identical server fro
> backup using log shipping):
> =========================
> IBM X3650 (This is a 2U server, can hold 8 Drives)
> 2 x QC Xeon E5450 (3.0GHz 12MB L2 1333MHz 80W)
> 8 x 2GB RAM (16GB total)
> 2.5" SAS Hotswap
> ServeRAID-8K SAS Controller
> 8 x 73GB 15K 2.5" SAS Drive
> CD/DVD Drive
> Remote Supervisor Adapter II Slimline
> Redundant Power
> 4 Year, 24x7 2hour support/warranty
>
> =========================
>
> I would like specialists advices.
>
> If you need additional details, please let me know.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help
>
> Thank you
>
> Pascal
>
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-12 19:42 Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
parent: Mark Lewis <mark.lewis@mir3.com>
1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Pascal Cohen @ 2008-03-12 19:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: ; +Cc: pgsql-performance
Mark Lewis wrote:
> What type of usage does it need to scale for? How many concurrent
> connections? What size database? Data warehousing or OLTP-type
> workloads? Ratio of reads/writes? Do you care about losing data?
>
I expected those questions but I was sure that I would forget or ignore
some ;)
- This Database will be accessed by Web applications but also by an XMPP
server. This means that those are not complex requests but we may have a
number of high parallel requests for small results. Ideally as many
connections as possible would be nice.
- I am not sure but I would say from what I found thanks to Google is
that we are probably closer to an OLTP type workload (but I may be wrong)
- Size of the DB: a few Gb but not yet more than the 16Gb.
- It is a read mainly database (8/9 reads for 1 write) with potential
batch updates
- We cannot afford (anymore) losing data.
> One question that's likely going to be important depending on your
> answers above is whether or not you're getting a battery-backed write
> cache for that ServeRAID-8K.
>
> -- Mark Lewis
>
> On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 19:58 +0100, Pascal Cohen wrote:
>
>> Hello, we plan to buy a dedicated server to host our database.
>> Here is the proposal I was given (with a second identical server fro
>> backup using log shipping):
>> =========================
>> IBM X3650 (This is a 2U server, can hold 8 Drives)
>> 2 x QC Xeon E5450 (3.0GHz 12MB L2 1333MHz 80W)
>> 8 x 2GB RAM (16GB total)
>> 2.5" SAS Hotswap
>> ServeRAID-8K SAS Controller
>> 8 x 73GB 15K 2.5" SAS Drive
>> CD/DVD Drive
>> Remote Supervisor Adapter II Slimline
>> Redundant Power
>> 4 Year, 24x7 2hour support/warranty
>>
>> =========================
>>
>> I would like specialists advices.
>>
>> If you need additional details, please let me know.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your help
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Pascal
>>
>>
>
>
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-12 20:08 Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
parent: Mark Lewis <mark.lewis@mir3.com>
1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Greg Smith @ 2008-03-12 20:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: ; +Cc: Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>; pgsql-performance
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008, Mark Lewis wrote:
> One question that's likely going to be important depending on your
> answers above is whether or not you're getting a battery-backed write
> cache for that ServeRAID-8K.
Apparently there's a 8k-l and an regular 8-k; the l doesn't have the
cache, so if this one is a regular 8-k it will have 256MB and a battery.
See http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/TIPS0054.html?Open#ServeRAID-8k
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-14 19:24 Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
parent: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Pascal Cohen @ 2008-03-14 19:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: pgsql-performance
Greg Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008, Mark Lewis wrote:
>
>> One question that's likely going to be important depending on your
>> answers above is whether or not you're getting a battery-backed write
>> cache for that ServeRAID-8K.
>
> Apparently there's a 8k-l and an regular 8-k; the l doesn't have the
> cache, so if this one is a regular 8-k it will have 256MB and a
> battery. See
> http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/TIPS0054.html?Open#ServeRAID-8k
It is the solution with RAM and battery.
>
>> From Pascal's description of the application this system sounds like
> overkill whether or not there's a cache. For scaling to lots of small
> requests, using things like using connection pooling may end up being
> more important than worring about the disk system (the database isn't
> big enough relative to RAM for that to be too important).
>
I agree with what you are saying. We are using Java with a pool of
connections to access the DB. Today our database is really small
compared to the RAM but it may evolve and even will probably grow (hope
so which would be a good situation).
Thanks for your advices/remarks.
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Hardware question for a DB server
@ 2008-03-14 19:43 Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>
parent: Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Scott Marlowe @ 2008-03-14 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>; +Cc: pgsql-performance
On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com> wrote:
> I agree with what you are saying. We are using Java with a pool of
> connections to access the DB. Today our database is really small
> compared to the RAM but it may evolve and even will probably grow (hope
> so which would be a good situation).
>
Keep in mind that differential cost between a mediocre and a good RAID
controller is often only a few hundred dollars. If that means you can
scale to 10 or 100 times as many users, it's an investment worth
making up front rather than later on.
^ permalink raw reply [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2008-03-14 19:43 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox mbox.gz follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2008-03-12 18:58 Hardware question for a DB server Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
2008-03-12 19:23 ` Mark Lewis <mark.lewis@mir3.com>
2008-03-12 19:42 ` Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
2008-03-12 20:08 ` Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
2008-03-14 19:24 ` Pascal Cohen <pcohen@wimba.com>
2008-03-14 19:43 ` Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>
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