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05-23-2004, 07:40 PM #1WHT Addict
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1 message board/forum hosted across many servers
Is it possible to have one forum (such as Invision or vBulletin) hosted across many different servers (dedicated, VPS, or virtual)?
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05-23-2004, 07:55 PM #2WHT Addict
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Yea, WHT is.
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05-23-2004, 08:06 PM #3Web Hosting Guru
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You could put the site on one and the database on another.
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05-23-2004, 08:16 PM #4Web Hosting Master
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Some forums require 10+ servers to power it. You can have several web servers that are load balanced. Several DB servers that are load balanced or each serving different purposes etc.. It's not that easy though and not that cheap
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05-23-2004, 08:29 PM #5Web Hosting Master
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Running few webservers with one database server is relatively cheap if you need it to be (you can use round robin dns for the webservers and connect them all to a beefy raid5 database server)...
^^ IM WITH STUPID!! ^^
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05-24-2004, 02:00 AM #6Aspiring Evangelist
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you probably will start like this:
- get the biggest DB server possible with 4 or even 6-8GB RAM and 10k rpm or better 15K SCSI RAID 5 or even RAID 10
- get 3-4 web slaves (dual xeons with cheap IDEs)
- load balance (per DNS works)
focus on the DB server and put all your $$ in there. web servers are always easy to add/upgrade later.
works here with 70M page views/mo
I then added an other DB slave, mostly to be able to perfom consitent backups but also for a couple really SQL intensive queries (search etc.)
I hope they get mysql cluster up & running soon...
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06-02-2004, 06:56 AM #7Web Hosting Guru
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If you can't afford a load balancer
You may want to start adding a high perf DB server and then another mid/lower end one for the static files (images/js/css) running thttpd/Boa/etc.
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06-02-2004, 07:35 AM #8Junior Guru Wannabe
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Depending on your database you can also load-balance your DN requests and run replication software on them.
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06-02-2004, 09:36 AM #9CISSP-ISSMP, CISA
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Are you in the market to actually purchase a cluster? If so, you may wish to talk to Paul (rusko here on WHT).
Regards.
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06-02-2004, 10:06 AM #10Web Hosting Master
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thttpd is a nice idea for static files. www.enternexus.com uses multiple servers. 1 Dual Xeon 2.4 or 2.8 database server with 4 GB RAM and 3x36 GB SCSI running RAID 5. 2 web servers, P4's work fine. I believe they use 2 p4 2.4's with 1 GB RAM each. And they just use round robin DNS. Works perfectly and serves 1000-2000 simultaneous users on their MySQL intensive site...
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06-02-2004, 10:27 AM #11Problem Solver
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hrmm enternexus.com comes up slow for me.
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06-03-2004, 01:30 AM #12Aspiring Evangelist
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thttpd (esp. with epoll) is infact incredible efficient...reminds me of more a kernel module than a user-app... you might serve millions of pics per hour and might wonder if you're really doing that since the load still might be at 0.00...
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06-03-2004, 06:24 AM #13Web Hosting Master
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Re: 1 message board/forum hosted across many servers
Originally posted by VAFS.COM
Is it possible to have one forum hosted across many different servers?
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06-03-2004, 06:53 AM #14Web Hosting Master
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if your forum uses mysql, you are not going to be able to (easily) cluster the db server. as such, you will need to beefiest one your budget allows. scsi, a lot of ram, dual xeon or dual opteron.
add a number of webserver frontends. depending on your load, p4 2.8 1mb l2 cache prescotts work well for us. if you can afford them, dual p3s 512lb l2 cache tualatins will rock for this. have them connect to the same db backend, of course.
a hardware load balancer would be nice, but the good ones are expensive++ and you would need two for them to be redundant - you do not want to add a single point of failure.
there are a number of other possibilities here. my first choice in your case would be weighted round robin dns running on the backend. although it is a single point of failure, it coincides with your existing single point of failure - the db backend. i have found that, for example, our in-house round robin implementation is more full featured than some hardware load balancers in that it is able to make policy-based weighting decisions on where to direct traffic based on a more rich amount of datapoints and factors. of course, you also need to maintain session affinity - if someone logs on on one web frontend, they should not get logged off the forum when their next request is forwarded to a differrent frontend. to that end, you can either apply a patch to php (we have a proprietary one; other vendors offering this solution may have one as well), or as a cleaner alternative, use a snippet of php that registers a session handler which stores the sessions in mysql. this entails a little bit of application modification, but can be easily automated.
further optimizations, such as using a single-threaded async i/o httpd to serve your static media, eg images, flash and movies, are of course possible. thttpd is nice, but does not have support for hotlink protection. not to fret, we have a patch adding that functionality =]
voila, you now have your forum running on a dedicated bckend db server and N webserver frontends.* Rusko Enterprises LLC - Upgrade to 100% uptime today!
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06-03-2004, 09:56 AM #15Web Hosting Evangelist
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The PHP + MySQL is a very bad combination for the forums with such load. There so many options to make it works with J2EE + PostgreSQL - rest of the world does exactly that.
Peter Kinev.Open Solution, Inc
http://opensolution-us.com
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06-03-2004, 10:15 AM #16Web Hosting Master
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i'm sorry peter, but using 'java' and 'performance' in the same sentence is a crime. additionally, not everyone has the opportunity or the ability to write their own forum software. when there is an alternative to vbulletin in terms of features that runs on a platform better suited to load balancing, we will all be celebrating at the local bar.
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06-03-2004, 10:33 AM #17Web Hosting Evangelist
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Originally posted by rusko
i'm sorry peter, but using 'java' and 'performance' in the same sentence is a crime. additionally, not everyone has the opportunity or the ability to write their own forum software. when there is an alternative to vbulletin in terms of features that runs on a platform better suited to load balancing, we will all be celebrating at the local bar.
paul
Regards,
Peter.Open Solution, Inc
http://opensolution-us.com
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06-03-2004, 11:21 AM #18Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by pnorilsk
Paul, Paul, you already know me. Do you really want me to prove that Java will outperform PHP anywhere, anytime?
Think about that this way - what is wrong with Fortune 500? Why they are so stupid?
besides, what does 'a lot of people use it and they have a lot of money' have to do with anything? those same enterprises were commisioning cobol apps a while back and still hang on to their shiny mainframes running said cobol apps.
And why any Fortune 500 web site looks better and does better job than any website written in scripting language?
What about maintenability? I can go on and on.
Man, let us stop and do not open a can of worms. I think you are from New York. Do you want to make a local visit on Wall Street, to see what those stupids are doing?
as far as opening a can of worms, you made a statement and i asked you to substantiate it. i am not a CIO, please stay technical instead of trying to invoke my herd instinct.
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06-03-2004, 12:12 PM #19Web Hosting Evangelist
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Originally posted by rusko
please, by all means, go ahead.
because php does/did not have a big vendor supporting it, as is the case with sun and java. php is younger as well. you have worked with the enterprise - you know that technical merit is rather low on the list when the decisions are made (business risk, tco propaganda etc are usually at the top) and the shots are called by people who are far from being sufficiently technical. seeing 'java' on the cover of every single magazine aimed at the CIO/VPoIT level ensured they signed off on the proposal that had the largest amount of familiar words in it.
besides, what does 'a lot of people use it and they have a lot of money' have to do with anything? those same enterprises were commisioning cobol apps a while back and still hang on to their shiny mainframes running said cobol apps.
the look of a website is orthogonal to the discussion. as far as doing a better job, which is arguable, but assuming the statement is true, would likely have to do with more resources and better planning. this is assuming that all of the enterprise websites are implemented with JXXX, which is no longer true.
maintainability has to do with the design and the implementation more than anything, provided you aren't using something like the aforementioned cobol =] i have seen jsp/jxxx apps which noone wanted to touch with a ten foot pole, so they got farmed out to the quiet girl just out of college because she didn't have the balls to protest. i've seen php apps that are an example of excellent architecture and engineering. i've seen it the other way around too. a programming language is a *tool* in the hands of the engineers - provided the tool is adequate, the skills of the person wielding it is what makes the difference in the end result.
see above - just because everyone (in a certain group) is doing it does not make it right. everybody on the web (with the exception of enterprises) uses php - in some cases, it was a completely wrong engineering decision.
as far as opening a can of worms, you made a statement and i asked you to substantiate it. i am not a CIO, please stay technical instead of trying to invoke my herd instinct.
paul
Here is a snippet from one guy posting on this subject, I cannot do it better. (I used it in this forum twice already and I think you know that). It will also save my time. Finally, please be careful with you conclusions / recommendations - some of them are simply dangerous for uneducated public (see your signature and compare it with our discussion about 100% of availability)
"The installation base is the primary reason I'm using PHP for a project now; it's intended for use by novices who most likely are in a virtual hosting environment without access to a servlet container. But whenever I'm working on it I find myself longing for a lot of the features of Java.\n\n Simply put, Java is a real programming language and PHP isn't. While you can code in a non-OO way with Java, anyone that uses it much has the whole concept drummed into their heads at an early stage. So even a rotten app written in Java is generally much more maintainable than one written in PHP. The language is bigger, it's more flexible, and it gives you much finer-grained control over what's going on than does PHP. Want a GUI? No problem. Database connection pooling? Ditto. A multi-threaded app? Objects that persist between server calls? To use XML and XSL? You get the idea.\n\n And there are so many fantastic open-source resources for Java. Jakarta awes me, and so does a lot of the stuff on sourceforge. I'm learning Ant, Hibernate and the JSTL right now--it's like being a kid in a candy store. By contrast, what's available for PHP is a joke. Sure, Metabase and Smarty are both good projects, but I have a hard time thinking of any other decent PHP libraries (and that includes what's in PEAR). And those examples aren't anywhere near the functionality and maturity of Eclipse or Cocoon, just to name two.\n\n My thought: if you want to hack out a webapp in a weekend, definitely go with PHP. If you're building anything you're going to be stuck maintaining for a while, or even rebuilding a Java app that completely stinks, salvage as much of the code as you can and stay with Java. You'll be much happier in the long run.\n\n"
It was written last year. Few things are different now in a Java world, for instance formalization of "Attributes and Aspects Oriented Programming"
Peter Kinev.Open Solution, Inc
http://opensolution-us.com
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06-03-2004, 02:23 PM #20Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by pnorilsk
I wanted to give you some "space" after our first interaction in the "cluster" thread, but you challenge me again.
Paul, these statements of yours are the worst case of demagogy.
to be quite honest though, i don't have much to respond to, since you continue to evade the technical matter of the discussion.
The problem is you don't know about that. It's too bad.
You mentioned about my experience with big enterprises - you are correct I worked with many firms on the Street,
but I also work in the kernel development of AIX (you use it now in Linux)
IBM contributed manpower to various projects. if i recall, NUMA and scaling went pretty well. cifsvfs is/was a disaster. again, what does this have to do with anything? are you claiming that aix somehow made linux what it is?
and Sun Microsystems. I also have a substantial experience to operate small business of my own.
Here is a snippet from one guy posting on this subject, I cannot do it better. (I used it in this forum twice already and I think you know that).
It will also save my time.
Finally, please be careful with you conclusions / recommendations - some of them are simply dangerous for uneducated public (see your signature and compare it with our discussion about 100% of availability)
as far as my signature, we provide a 100% uptime SLA on connectivity. this is different from service availability which we were previously discussing.
"The installation base is the primary reason I'm using PHP for a project now; it's intended for use by novices
who most likely are in a virtual hosting environment without access to a servlet container.
But whenever I'm working on it I find myself longing for a lot of the features of Java.
Simply put, Java is a real programming language and PHP isn't.
While you can code in a non-OO way with Java, anyone that uses it much has the whole concept drummed into their heads at an early stage. So even a rotten app written in Java is generally much more maintainable than one written in PHP.
what he is saying, essentially, is that java forces a paradigm on the developer so that even bad developers that were really meant to be janitors write decent code. why should i care? i can code circles around the guy all day while he's figuring out where his null pointer exceptions are coming from.
The language is bigger,
it's more flexible, and it gives you much finer-grained control over what's going on than does PHP.
/
as far as flexible, php's sytax is essentially c syntax with some OO extensions. i have personally found c to be an excellent balance between expressiveness, amount of typing involved and readability. millions of people and billions of slocs agree. some people are still cobol fans, and that is fine. live and let live.
Want a GUI? No problem. Database connection pooling? Ditto. A multi-threaded app? Objects that persist between server calls? To use XML and XSL? You get the idea.
db connection pooling - built into php already, you don't have to write a single line of code to take advantage of it. next.
multi-threaded app - like the gui, it is a feature you talk about in the context of standalone apps on the endsystem. php is multi-threading safe when loaded into a multithreaded httpd.
objects that persist between server calls - php has two session implementations and you can write your own too and make it the default with one function call.
xml and xsl - implemented as the respective extensions.
please note that all of these features were present in php over 3 years ago. so no, these are not recent developments.
And there are so many fantastic open-source resources for Java. Jakarta awes me, and so does a lot of the stuff on sourceforge. I'm learning Ant, Hibernate and the JSTL right now--it's like being a kid in a candy store. By contrast, what's available for PHP is a joke. Sure, Metabase and Smarty are both good projects, but I have a hard time thinking of any other decent PHP libraries (and that includes what's in PEAR). And those examples aren't anywhere near the functionality and maturity of Eclipse or Cocoon, just to name two.
My thought: if you want to hack out a webapp in a weekend, definitely go with PHP.
If you're building anything you're going to be stuck maintaining for a while, or even rebuilding a Java app that completely stinks, salvage as much of the code as you can and stay with Java. You'll be much happier in the long run."
java has its uses and i am not denying that. performance and resource conservation sensitive applications are not it, imho.
ok, so now we have gone and started a language vs language discussion. i firmly believe in the 'right tool for the job' modus operandi, so the only reason i let myself be drawn into this is because the statements made by the person you quoted were ignorantly fallacious.
if you recall, you were going to prove to me that java always outperforms php. while we have discussed a fair number of topics comparing the two languages, we have not discussed the performance or why java is better suited for the development of scalable applications.
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06-03-2004, 02:56 PM #21Web Hosting Evangelist
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Listen Paul, I think I failed again to prove you anything. I don't think you have any experience in Java, I don't think you are also qualified to discuss fairly complicated technical issues. And this is true (obviously in my opinion).
I think I will be better off in avoiding you in the forum. The problem is, public will suffer.
And, please remove this idiotic 100% from the signature. It reflects level of your knowledge and also my stupidity to allow be engaged in this dialog.
I certainly can prove you something by offering to build your site with J2EE + PostgreSQL in one day - with forum, CMS, shopping cart, portal, dynamic content, etc. Take this offer, it's free.
Good luck.
Peter.Open Solution, Inc
http://opensolution-us.com
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06-03-2004, 03:21 PM #22Aspiring Evangelist
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I think the poor guys question has already been asnwered.
Some things:
1. I can see situations (many in fact) where using more than on thread for a single client can be quite useful. If this is not available in php, java has this advantage.
2. Java is as close to compiled code as you will get now-a-days with all the jiting and binary caching type of mechanisms.
3. Java is strongly typed (compared to php at least) which DOES make the code more readable and maintainable.
4. I agree that Java is probably not a good idea for shared environments.
5. In the hands of a properly trained individual, both could probably accomplish the same tasks well enough.
6. I hate JDBC.
7. Using java for an application like a bulletin board is not smart because of the large memory overhead of the jre.
8. It is said that even Sun prefers not to use java for many of their internal solutions. What this means is that there are some jobs that java is not suited for. It does NOT mean that java sucks etc...
9. You can get some VERY high performance applications out of java. In fact, for many applications that require intensive processing on the program side, one can get performance comparable to natively compiled applications.
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06-03-2004, 03:22 PM #23Web Hosting Evangelist
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I've had experiences with the both of them, and I will say that Java is nowhere near as good as PHP when it comes to designing webapps. It just wasn't intended for that purpose, and it isn't it's focus.
Network applications and web applicaitons are very different things. I want to do spiffy things internetwork, with real programs running, Java. If i want to make a spiffy web program, PHP.
It's apples to oranges. Sure, there are plenty of Java extensions out there turning it into a webapp development language, but that wasn't it's original purpose, and by very easy reasoning, something designed for a purpose will do better than something that wasn't.
When it comes to web apps, think of it this way:
PHP is an actual lawn mower
Java is a metal fan strapped onto a cart
It's really that simple
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06-03-2004, 03:44 PM #24Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by pnorilsk
Listen Paul, I think I failed again to prove you anything.
I don't think you have any experience in Java, I don't think you are also qualified to discuss fairly complicated technical issues. And this is true (obviously in my opinion).
have you even *once* made an attempt to discuss 'fairly complicated technical issues' with me, or anyone else for this matter, on these fora? all i have seen is namedropping, references to your past and present work and appeals for us, the public, to bow down to your superior intellect that is too superior for you to even begin to enlighten us with your superior knowledge.
stop stroking your ego and contribute. arrogance with no basis may work well for you in the rarified atmosphere of the fortune 500, but it won't get you far here. subtance, however, will. so bring it.
you can call me incompetent as much as you like. i will continue answering people's questions, as time permits, and let them judge the worth of my posts.
the response i have received from the people i've helped is indeed very positive; feel free to tell people to rewrite their forum software in java though, i'm sure they will find that gem of a piece of advice very useful.
by the way, while you are doing that, i will be building clusters for people who need practical solutions and clearly consider me competent enough to vote with their dollars.
I think I will be better off in avoiding you in the forum. The problem is, public will suffer.
And, please remove this idiotic 100% from the signature. It reflects level of your knowledge and also my stupidity to allow be engaged in this dialog.
I certainly can prove you something by offering to build your site with J2EE + PostgreSQL in one day - with forum, CMS, shopping cart, portal, dynamic content, etc. Take this offer, it's free.
paul* Rusko Enterprises LLC - Upgrade to 100% uptime today!
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06-03-2004, 03:52 PM #25Web Hosting Evangelist
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Originally posted by TalonKarrde
I've had experiences with the both of them, and I will say that Java is nowhere near as good as PHP when it comes to designing webapps. It just wasn't intended for that purpose, and it isn't it's focus.
Network applications and web applicaitons are very different things. I want to do spiffy things internetwork, with real programs running, Java. If i want to make a spiffy web program, PHP.
It's apples to oranges. Sure, there are plenty of Java extensions out there turning it into a webapp development language, but that wasn't it's original purpose, and by very easy reasoning, something designed for a purpose will do better than something that wasn't.
When it comes to web apps, think of it this way:
PHP is an actual lawn mower
Java is a metal fan strapped onto a cart
It's really that simple
2. ...
3. The J2EE technology/frameworks/approaches/methodology has many different components and packages, some of them built-in, some of them extensions. In my test, too many. But it's one single technology and should be referred this way. Otherwise indeed we are talking apples and oranges.
Peter Kinev.Open Solution, Inc
http://opensolution-us.com