[Pc_Support] Re: Ready to Play Linux Server Recommendations?

Wed Jul 6 19:31:25 EDT 2005

From: Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com>
> Anyone have any thoughts on x86 boxes ready to rock that need only
> have Linux installed?  I'm looking for something in the $4-$5K range.

Well, if you haven't noticed by now, I can't, in good conscience,
recommend Intel EM64T for servers.  Although Intel has addressed
some of the basic >4GiB memory issues with the latest Xeon MP,
they still have the memory controller hub (MCH) "front side
bottleneck," and the lack of an I/O MMU which means you're using
"bounce buffers" for more than 4GiB of RAM.

My personal opinion has been a staunch recommendation of
either Opteron for newer, >1GiB RAM servers, or older, refurbished
dual-P3 systems (with ServerWorks IIILE/IIIHE) for 1GiB RAM or
less when you're pinching pennies.  And when it comes to the
Opteron, there varying designs.

- Tier-1:  HP or Sun

If you want a tier-1 OEM, then the HP DL145, DL385 and DL585 
2x, 2x and 4x Opterons are your meal tickets.  For those not familar
with HP's 14x (1U), 38x (2U) and 58x (4U) lines, the latter two have
hot-swap, redundant power, etc..., while the former is clearly an
economically designed system.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/platforms/index-dl.html  

Sun definitely bests even HP in design, although you'll pay a
premium for it.  Their 4x Opteron SunFire V40z has (3) AMD8131
HyperTransport tunnels -- meaning (4) PCI-X slots are _full_
133MHz, 1GBps slots, with the other (3) PCI-X slots being
66-100MHz (including the on-board peripherals).

http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v40z/index.jsp  

So, in a nutshell, when cost is a factor, the DL145 is great.
If you just need a 2-way with a bit more, and hot-swap/PS
redundancy options, the DL385 will do nicely.

When you're looking for top-tier 4-way (8-way with dual-core)
systems, the DL585 is a well-designed, AMD reference Opteron
800 great for all duties.  If you want the ultimate in I/O, maybe
because it's a file server, or has multiple storage/networking
connections, it's hard to beat the SunFire V40z which goes
beyond even AMD's reference Opteron 800.

- Tier-2:  Monarch Computer

If you don't mind a tier-2 OEM that custom builds, especially
if you like more SATA options like 3Ware controllers, then
Monarch is definitely your partner.  They are currently the
_premier_ AMD partner, so they get the stuff _first_, often
before _anyone_ else in the "whitebox" world (sometimes
exclusiely for the first week or two of introduction).

And they'll ship anything from Debian, Fedora, SuSE Linux
to full-up RHEL and SLES with _software_ support in the case
of the latter two (for sub-$1,500 in some cases, very nice).

The Monarch Empro line is their Opteron offering, with various
workstation, server and other options.  They offer Rackmount
servers in 1U, 2U and 3U form-factors, including 4, 8 and 12
3.5"x1" hot-swap HD drive bays plus slim 3.5" and CD drives.

Mainboards are typically Tyan, among others, so they are
geared more towards cost-conscience designs than ultra-I/O.
E.g., although their 2x Opteron boards compete well with
most tier-1 Opteron offerings, the 4x Opteron is clearly not
quite as powerful as the DL585 or V40z.  So if you're not
looking to build a powerful file or other LAN server with
massive I/O, but more of a web server with one PCI-X
channel for network and the other for storage (single
AMD8131), then the Monarch solutions will do quite well. 

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=M&Category_Code=allEmpro

> It's going to be primarily a database server with some Web
> application development against said database server taking
> place.  The datasets are of a moderate size, so 60GB of disk
> space or more is estimated.  I'm looking for something that's
> SCA with RAID, preferably 4U in size.

In that case, I'd look at the Monarch Empro series in a 2U:  
- Dual Opteron 200** series (upgrade option to dual-core)
- (4) 1GB Registered ECC (best size for the buck now)
- LSI Logic MegaRAID 320-2X** XScale-driven RAID (dual-U320)
- (2) 73GB or 146GB U320 drives in RAID-1 for system
- (6) 36+GB U320 drives for RAID-5 for data

**NOTE:  A PCIe mainboard with LSI Logic MegaRAID 320-2E
(PCIe x8 card) is also an option.

The costs will be about $300-500 for the mainboard, CPU will
vary ($400-800 total for 2x Opteron 244-248), $800-1,000 for
the 4GiB of memory (use 4 DIMMs for the full 256-bit memory
interconnect, 128-bit/CPU -- if you only need 2GiB, then use
512MB DIMMs instead), $500-600 for the MegaRAID 320-2X,
various prices for the drives.

> The current machine is a dual P3 box with 2GB of PC133 ECC
> RAM and an old Adaptec 2100-S RAID controller with 3 18GB
> Seagate Cheetah 10Ks in a RAID 5 configuration.

Ouch, old i960-based RAID, not capable at all.

> Disks, redundancy, and disk accessibility are my primary
> interests.

Monarch can give you a redundant PS configuration in 2U.

> The existing CPU and RAM have proven adequate for our
> needs so far.

Hmm, why change then?
Maybe buy another, dual-P3 config for cheap?

Or are you saying the disk could be better?
I would definitely use RAID-1 for the system volumes,
and RAID-5 for the web data.

> Thoughts on vendors and such?

As above.

--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org