MySQL Server Hardware
Howdy All, I work in a place that has traditionally used Sun Sparc hardware running Solaris to host a production MySQL environment. We are going to be replacing our database servers this year and I am trying to determine if I want to maintain the norm or if I want to try to change. I am interested to see what other people use for hardware/OS for a production MySQL installation that requires a high amount of uptime. Thanks in advance for any replies. -John Westcott
We use the Crux Linux distribution with MySQL. Our production systems handle high volumes of traffic and database transactions...without incident (unless the hardware fails as I mentioned in a previous post). Tal -----Original Message----- From: wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org [mailto:wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org] On Behalf Of John Westcott, IV Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 3:00 PM To: wlug@mail.wlug.org Subject: [Wlug] MySQL Server Hardware Howdy All, I work in a place that has traditionally used Sun Sparc hardware running Solaris to host a production MySQL environment. We are going to be replacing our database servers this year and I am trying to determine if I want to maintain the norm or if I want to try to change. I am interested to see what other people use for hardware/OS for a production MySQL installation that requires a high amount of uptime. Thanks in advance for any replies. -John Westcott _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
"IV" == IV John Westcott <John.Westcott@tufts.edu> writes:
IV> I work in a place that has traditionally used Sun Sparc hardware IV> running Solaris to host a production MySQL environment. IV> We are going to be replacing our database servers this year and I am IV> trying to determine if I want to maintain the norm or if I want to try IV> to change. IV> I am interested to see what other people use for hardware/OS for IV> a production MySQL installation that requires a high amount of IV> uptime. Well, the nice thing I like about Sun hardware is that you have remote serial console access all the way down to the BIOS. This, to me, is a key issue in supporting any critical system. This way I don't have to drive into the data center to fix things if at all possible. Second, in your case you might want to think about a MySQL cluster if you have lots of stringent uptime requirements, but it's not clear what kind of downtime you can handle. You might want to look at the new Sun Opteron X4x000 boxes, they're cheaper and faster than Sparc, but come with the nice remote management features that I find indispensable. Another vendor would be Rackable Computing, they have BIOS access over serial and it works well. Again, not knowing your system loads, I'd say that any AMD Opteron box with plenty of memory would be just fine for you. In this case, the more memory the better, and of course having fast local disks in a RAID setup is also key. Mirroring the OS and data disks is key here to long life. Oh yeah, moving to Solaris in X86 might also help in this transition, in that you get more bang for the buck, but don't have a complete issue with re-training and finding new tools to do what you want. Solaris 10 on x86 is pretty neat. John
On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 09:31:24AM -0400, John Stoffel wrote:
Well, the nice thing I like about Sun hardware is that you have remote serial console access all the way down to the BIOS. This, to me, is a key issue in supporting any critical system. This way I don't have to drive into the data center to fix things if at all possible.
Actually, a lot of the higher end x86 boxes have stolen this idea, including at least Dell and HP. It's a little mini system with it's own CPU, memory, NIC, etc that can give you access to the power switch, a virtual KVM, and a virtual floppy and CD for recovery purposes. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that WPI Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken GPG fingerprint = 6174 1257 129E 0D21 D8D4 E8A3 8E39 29E3 E2E8 8CEC
Quotes from John Stoffel
Well, the nice thing I like about Sun hardware is that you have remote serial console access all the way down to the BIOS. This, to me, is a key issue in supporting any critical system. This way I don't have to drive into the data center to fix things if at all possible.
Yes, this is quite important since I live near Worcester and the DC is in Medford.
Second, in your case you might want to think about a MySQL cluster if you have lots of stringent uptime requirements, but it's not clear what kind of downtime you can handle.
I thought about clustering the database but its about 80G in size with a big projected growth (around 125G this time next year). The 5.0 current clustering technology uses in memory storage making this almost unfeasible (I did price out some hardware to do this but it was a bit beyond my budget). MySQL 5.1 has started to use disk based storage for pieces of the tables but its still Beta. Aside from that limitation we are still on a 4.1 release and I'd rather separate an OS change and a DB change into two phases.
You might want to look at the new Sun Opteron X4x000 boxes, they're cheaper and faster than Sparc, but come with the nice remote management features that I find indispensable.
Since I posted this, I have looked at the Opteron 4X00 series and I am leaning towards them as machines for this project because of the price and the fact that if Solaris x86 does not work out I can run Linux on them :)
Another vendor would be Rackable Computing, they have BIOS access over serial and it works well.
I'll check them out.
Again, not knowing your system loads, I'd say that any AMD Opteron box with plenty of memory would be just fine for you. In this case, the more memory the better, and of course having fast local disks in a RAID setup is also key. Mirroring the OS and data disks is key here to long life.
OS drives are always mirrored in our machines and part of the upgrade will be new RAID disk arrays.
Oh yeah, moving to Solaris in X86 might also help in this transition, in that you get more bang for the buck, but don't have a complete issue with re-training and finding new tools to do what you want. Solaris 10 on x86 is pretty neat.
Thanks for the vote of confidence on giving Solaris x86 a try, I'll let you know how it turns out.
John
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread (or do in the future) -John
Hello John, Some commentary on database hardware came across Digg recently: <http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/> -Adam On 4/30/07, John Westcott IV <John.Westcott@tufts.edu> wrote:
Quotes from John Stoffel
Well, the nice thing I like about Sun hardware is that you have remote serial console access all the way down to the BIOS. This, to me, is a key issue in supporting any critical system. This way I don't have to drive into the data center to fix things if at all possible.
Yes, this is quite important since I live near Worcester and the DC is in Medford.
Second, in your case you might want to think about a MySQL cluster if you have lots of stringent uptime requirements, but it's not clear what kind of downtime you can handle.
I thought about clustering the database but its about 80G in size with a big projected growth (around 125G this time next year). The 5.0 current clustering technology uses in memory storage making this almost unfeasible (I did price out some hardware to do this but it was a bit beyond my budget). MySQL 5.1 has started to use disk based storage for pieces of the tables but its still Beta. Aside from that limitation we are still on a 4.1 release and I'd rather separate an OS change and a DB change into two phases.
You might want to look at the new Sun Opteron X4x000 boxes, they're cheaper and faster than Sparc, but come with the nice remote management features that I find indispensable.
Since I posted this, I have looked at the Opteron 4X00 series and I am leaning towards them as machines for this project because of the price and the fact that if Solaris x86 does not work out I can run Linux on them :)
Another vendor would be Rackable Computing, they have BIOS access over serial and it works well.
I'll check them out.
Again, not knowing your system loads, I'd say that any AMD Opteron box with plenty of memory would be just fine for you. In this case, the more memory the better, and of course having fast local disks in a RAID setup is also key. Mirroring the OS and data disks is key here to long life.
OS drives are always mirrored in our machines and part of the upgrade will be new RAID disk arrays.
Oh yeah, moving to Solaris in X86 might also help in this transition, in that you get more bang for the buck, but don't have a complete issue with re-training and finding new tools to do what you want. Solaris 10 on x86 is pretty neat.
Thanks for the vote of confidence on giving Solaris x86 a try, I'll let you know how it turns out.
John
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread (or do in the future) -John
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-- -Adam
participants (6)
-
Adam Keck -
Frank Sweetser -
John Stoffel -
John Westcott IV -
John Westcott, IV
-
Tal Cohen