Ideal web server configuration

[Delfos, Jacob]

Hi Mike,

It sounds like you are doing very similar things to us (chameleon, php_mapscript, AJAX, and postgresql). I'm nowhere near as qualified as some to answer this, but I would focus on:

- at least two harddisks setup as RAID, to ensure fast reading speed. This will help a lot in general, especially reading large images from the disk.
- lower-clockspeed quad core processors (comparatively cheap), in preference of high-speed dual core processors, because you would expect many, shortlived, simultaneous processes, rather than just a few intensive long-lasting processes. An expensive dual-core buys you two quad core processors. We prefer the latter.
- 4GB of RAM is good, although we rarely need it all.

I guess it depends on what you call a "modest budget", but I would focus on what you bottlenecks would be. In your case, I'd say disk speed (especially for chameleon, which does lots of reads and writes), then CPU, then RAM. We recently bought our server based on these principles, and it works well for us.

regards,

Jacob


-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List on behalf of Mike Leahy
Sent: Tue 22/01/2008 09:23
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Ideal web server configuration
 
Hello list,

I'm looking at ordering a new web server for the office I'm in, and I'm
wondering if anyone has any suggestions regarding the hardware that I
should choose.  Normally, I've worked with hardware that was already
available to me, so I've never really had to put consideration into this
upfront.  I know this may be a bit off-topic for this list, but I figure
people on this list will likely have some experience with this.

The application we're working on will involve multiple simultaneous
users interacting with a chameleon-based map interface.  The
communication between the client and server will generally involve AJAX
requests and downloading of updated map images generated by MapServer.
On the server side, we'll be running Apache, PHP (with MapScript), and a
PostgreSQL/PostGIS server that will be receiving frequent
queries/updates.  There will likely be some high resolution imagery, as
well as a variety of vector layers used in the map that is displayed.

Given that I have a relatively modest budget to work with, what I'd
really like to know is how I should prioritize the different hardware
specs that I can choose from (e.g., multiple CPUs/core, RAM, SATA/SAS
and/or RAID disk configurations, etc.).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Mike



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