Yup you heard correctly.

Im looking for advice/opinions really, I need to spec a system out for the below:

6 Million Transactions per month, Totalling 15TB of transfer per month.
All video streaming, of files approx 0.5mb in size each time (some will be downloaded multiple times).
1TB of HDD Space required.

I was looking at the solutions below:

A set of 1u web servers, easily scalable to add more as and when needed, not sure on quantity or spec as yet.

The BIG-IP® HA+ Controller for the load balancing of those clusters.

A 3TB Raid 5 Array (with server), to give 1TB of storage for all the files for the website, mapped to the clusters via nfs or similar.

Any comments, suggestions, etc etc much appreciated

Regards,

Tony Lucas

Well for starters you are going to require a bare minimum of of a dedicated OC1 connection, probably more. 15 terrabytes per month equates to an average of 48.55 Mbps. An OC1 is an ATM fibre optic connection which allows throughput of 51.84 Mbps.

I do have any pricing information on this type of connection, but you are looking at 5 figures per month for it alone, plus your hardware (router, switch, and servers).

Well, check, http://www.raidzone.com/ for a lowish cost disk array. Mind you, you're going to need a gigabit ethernet network to provide enough bandwidth between the streaming servers, and the file servers(disk array).

two full racks of 1 us servers clustered. 3.5tb disk space RAID array. gigabit ethernet, switching, cisco everything, and an DS-3 dataline. $534,812 to setup and $18,000/mo
bandwidth. Plus another $18,000 in admins, electricity, work area rental, etc.


(brain fart, I was thinking about the post when I typed this originaly)



[Edited by mysitehost on 12-29-2000 at 10:51 PM]

Where on earth did you find an OC-1 for 18k ?

<nt>

What, on earth are you going to be streaming?

I have the bandwidth and colo centre already sorted, its the spec of the servers im trying to finalise.

It's to stream video clips of approx 0.5mb in size each, just several million of them per month!

Bandwidth in the UK finally seems to be catching US prices up slowly though, I can get 45mb/s for $19k per month (albeit in a carrier neutral colo)

Regards,

Tony Lucas

Actually just looked at some more prices if anyone is interested.

100mb/s across LINX and the other peers for the isp, plus 10mb/s US transit.

£85k a year (approx $127k)

Nice........

Tony Lucas

I'm guessing/hoping you are going for a load balanced network. I would suggest using Sun equipment, especially with what you are doing.

The connection itself is the simple part of this situation, the equipment used is the interesting part since you need to ensure that you are adequately prepared for growth in the future.

I've seen some very nice looking load balancing hardware. Nothing I can really suggest confidently though, since I've only setup load balancing network once and that was software based(which is more then likely lower-end then what you are going to want, since I am sure specialized hardware would work more efficiently).


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Rory

Rory, in the original post, Toons said they are going to be using a load balancer.

Ok then, I must just be on some mind-altering drugs or something... Since I read that before I wrote anything.. lol

Oh well, t'is all good. :P