Hi Daniel: On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 17:22 +0100, Daniël Kollmer wrote: > Hello everyone > > Well, since January we have the definitive GO! to implement Evergreen/Conifer > as our ILS here at the IISG.
Awesome! > That means I will have to design and install a hardware platform to run it on. Oooh, fun... > Concerning that I would like to ask for some advice of you guys who have been > running it for some time. > > Basically I wanted to build it up around a rather powerful dedicated server > (dual quad core cpu, fast raid, 4gb memory). I have seen the schema that > Laurentian uses for their setup, so I have also considered splitting off the > database to run on a separate server, and the web frontend/staff client > frontend too. Your biggest bottleneck will be the database, you'll want the fast RAID and as much memory as you can throw at the database server. If I recall correctly, you're planning on using a separate discovery layer which would take a lot of the read load off of the database, but cataloguers etc will still appreciate a speedy direct connection to Evergreen. In that case, 4GB for 8 cores probably isn't the right ratio of memory-to-CPU; I would suggest something like 2 or 4GB RAM / CPU (the higher, the better). > > Here we are working with about 2mill records. Would that already merit a > separate dedicated database machine to gain performance? Is loadbalancing of > database queries something you all consider adviseable? Does it make sense to > use a separate web frontend performance-wise ... and so on You want a separate database server if you can afford it. The Web/OpenSRF server doesn't need fast RAID or all that much RAM, so it should be a relatively cheap piece of hardware in comparison. Say, 1 or 2GB RAM / CPU, RAID 1 for a bit of redundancy, and 8 cores. We're not load balancing database queries in Conifer right now; we're not even running reports against a separate database server. We just have a main database server against which all reads and writes are directed, plus replication going to a standby server for disaster recovery purposes. > Whatever tips and experiences you might like to share, I would definitely be > interested in them. I hope others weigh in!
