Page 1 of 4

How many servers do you think this would need?

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:34 pm
by Trenchant
I know someone who owns a site and is all hyped up about running it on 49 servers... Hey sure if it was a massive site and you actually need that many then go ahead. But what if I told you that this site had an average of probably 200-600 users online.

Now take into affect that these servers are all apparently "cutting edge" and one of the fee's alone cost 17000 USD. BTW I will add that the main server is running windows and all others are on linux. There are a lot of mysql queries constantly being sent but nothing major.

I figure the site could be run on 3 truely cutting edge servers. (15000 RPM hd's, 2-4 gigs ram each, dual opterons or xeons) What do you guys think? What is better? 49 servers or 3?

BTW, that one master windows server they are running on is a quad xeon. I imagine that aint to cheap to pay bills on...

Whats your opinion on this?

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:07 pm
by josh
Sounds like overkill to me, then again I don't know what kind of code those servers are running.

The less servers you can use (and not hit performance) obviously the better because it will cost less, unless you're talking a large cluster of commodity machines which doesn't sound like the case here

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:14 am
by feyd
I can't really say.. depending on how much processing power each user needs, the volume of users expected among other things, it could need that many with that much power. However, quad proc Xeon is hardly cutting edge...

I have spec'd blades costing $18K, $10K of which was a 40U rack for them to sit in. Each additional blade would be another $8K. All of which would be dual proc dual-core Opteron's or better. None would run Windows :roll:

Overall, I'll call <span style='color:blue' title='I&#39;m naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 11:49 am
by Trenchant
This site runs on PHP and MySQL. The domain is http://www.marapets.com

What would you guys choose to run the site? 49 servers or 3 servers(3 that are actualy high specs).

From the information given I would personally take the 3 servers. http://www.nukezone.nu runs on 2 high spec'd servers and they have way more users and way more database queries going off all the time. What do you guys think?

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:17 pm
by pilau
Marapets looks like a banner portal.
Anyway, 49 servers? What a waste of money. They could have donated it to my fund. :P

Now, seriously, that site does not look heavy t me. Maybe heavy on design, but on queries? I don't think so.
I'd suggest to tel your friend to sell 46 servers off.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:56 pm
by Trenchant
pilau wrote:Marapets looks like a banner portal.
Anyway, 49 servers? What a waste of money. They could have donated it to my fund. :P

Now, seriously, that site does not look heavy t me. Maybe heavy on design, but on queries? I don't think so.
I'd suggest to tel your friend to sell 46 servers off.
Not really a friend. Just a retard who figured I was dumb because I told him he could run the site on 3 servers.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:19 pm
by shiznatix
i agree with feyd... <span style='color:blue' title='I&#39;m naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:50 pm
by m3mn0n
Nukezone is also mainly text though, whereas this Neopets clone has a lot of graphics.

I'd say cutting it down to ~5 is better.. I honestly can't imagine how 49 separate servers are all being used in an effective way for a single website. Just the number alone hints at a bad overall system design and too much overkill in general.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:29 pm
by waradmin
49 is overkill, plain and simple. For a site with 600 people online max at one time, 3 servers with high spec's would do the job. Chances are this Neopets clone isnt constantly doing querys. Dedicate a server or 2 to mysql you dont need to have that many. Plus, where is this guy hosting 49 servers from?

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:50 pm
by Bill H
Well, if it makes the guy feel good to say "Hey, I've got 49 servers running my site" and he can afford it, what's wrong with that? Why should he turn any of them off?

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:57 pm
by d3ad1ysp0rk
Bill H wrote:Well, if it makes the guy feel good to say "Hey, I've got 49 servers running my site" and he can afford it, what's wrong with that? Why should he turn any of them off?
Because he could use the money for much better things, such as advertising, paying his programmers more, etc.

Or ya know.. donating money to charities.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:29 pm
by m3mn0n
Or properly establishing an efficient, cost-effective and overkill-free server setup. :wink:

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 11:25 pm
by hawleyjr
Just went to that site. The guy should spend money on making it look better.... UGLY!!!!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 11:44 pm
by Bill H
Because he could use the money for much better things,
On the other hand, it's his money, and that's your definition of better.

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:00 am
by pilau
Bill H wrote:
Because he could use the money for much better things,
On the other hand, it's his money, and that's your definition of better.
I was just going to say that.
But anyway, it's really a waste of money if this is the only use for the servers..