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  1. #1
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    Demand for clustered hosting?

    Hi community,

    What is the demand currently for high-end, geo-dispersed, clustered, mirrored hosting?

    We're intending to launch our flagship product towards the beginning of February, yet I wonder what the demand is on WHT for it.

    This is what essentially happens.

    All data, be it static .HTML files or MySQL databases is mirrored between each of our locations. We utilize MySQL cluster to keep the database in sync, and rsync generic data and configuration files every 15 - 60 minutes.

    What this means, is if one datacenter randomly explodes, and another is hit be a hurricane - you're still online.

    As you may be able to tell, we're aiming for the enterprise level "maximum uptime" market here. Whilst I know WHT isn't a place that would generally go for this type of thing, I thought I'd still see if there was any demand.

    Thanks.
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
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    New York, NY
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    From a performance standpoint - would a user be directed to the "closest" mirror of the data? If so, how are you accomplishing this? [e.g. what method..IP Anycast - GeoIP, etc.]

  3. #3
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    Does each mirror location has redundant setup?
    Or is it a non-redundant cluster (or single server) and served by another location in case of failure?

    What kind of package/price are you planning?

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Canada
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    Oh, I forgot to ask one thing.
    In 2007, I think more people/business would be actually choosing hosts with some forms of redundant setup.

    And also, people/business will be looking a bit more carefully at the security, since it is an important factor for the reliability, too.

    (That's why I started to ask about the security setup of shared hosts in this thread.)
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=573049

    What kind of security measures will you be using for protecting users from the cracked accounts and/or bad users?

  5. #5
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    The kind of clients you'll most likely get are the ones where you live.

    In order to provide such a service, you will be charging a lot and will probably need to meet face to face to the people whom you are providing the service.

    You'll get a lot of valuable clients this way.
    HostGuard.net - VPS Control Panel
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  6. #6
    Join Date
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    Layer0: Yes, a user would be redirected to the closest mirror. This is done utilizing GeoIP.

    Extras: Currently, each location has one server - if the "package" takes off as we hope it to, we will be adding redundancy at each seperate location on top of the current solution.

    In terms of security, we'll start with the basics.

    Custom passwords are not allowed, a password must consist of 16 characters minimum, and includes both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and at least two "special" characters.

    We have "wrappers" in place to restrict program access from certain locations (/tmp) e.t.c, and also have both "load" and "traffic" spike alerts. Any account that spikes an alert is investigated within 30 minutes.

    If the account is found to have experienced this spike legitimately (i.e: Digg), then the alert is removed from the system. Should the account be sending out illegal files, the account is immediately suspended and placed on hold.

    Should the traffic spike be of a suspicious nature that we cannot investigate further without liasing with the client, we will place a bandwidth rate (per second) restriction on that user until we can fully affirm their intentions.

    A snapshot of the cluster is taken every 24 hours, and we store snapshots for a period of one week - allowing us to rollback accounts should the worst happen.

    I'll put up an example package configuration

    5GB Space
    50GB Bandwidth
    MySQL Support
    PHP4/PHP5 Support
    Python (mod_python with Django, Twisted e.t.c)
    Ruby on Rails

    - Application Request System
    - (A user can request a specific application/software package to be installed.)

    $29.99/Month
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  7. #7
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    I have to say I really like the sound of that!

  8. #8
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    England, UK.
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    For the record, I need *FIVE* beta testers for the system.

    No control panel currently, we can however help with any and all administrative issues. Interested? PM me.
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  9. #9
    "MySQL cluster to keep the database in sync" across datacenters ?

    Have you ever worked with MySQL Cluster? I don't think a 15-60 minute sync will be acceptable for any enterprise client.
    Datums Internet Solutions, LLC
    Systems Engineering & Managed Hosting Services
    Complex Hosting Consultants

  10. #10
    Most people prefer price over uptime.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by iTechPath
    Most people prefer price over uptime.
    That's not the market I'm aiming for, however.
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by datums
    "MySQL cluster to keep the database in sync" across datacenters ?

    Have you ever worked with MySQL Cluster? I don't think a 15-60 minute sync will be acceptable for any enterprise client.
    15 - 60 minutes is for static files, such as .html. Files uploaded into the webroot e.t.c.

    MySQL is replicated immediately, as per how MySQL cluster works.
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  13. #13
    I thought you meant config files
    " rsync generic data and configuration files every 15 - 60 minutes."

    Also I don't think that time is acceptable for a enterprise client site to be updated.
    You probably will need to decrease that interval.

    It replicates immediately, usually if it's low load and the servers are sharing the network. How much ram are you planning to have available on the db cluster?

    If you've been working with MySQL Cluster you will know it is fairly buggy.
    You should really do a lot of load testing before offering this as a service to enterprice clients.


    Good Luck
    Datums Internet Solutions, LLC
    Systems Engineering & Managed Hosting Services
    Complex Hosting Consultants

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Tampa Florida
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    Have you tested mysql clustering over this distance yet?
    It is pretty sensative to latency.
    (AKA is can consume a LOT of CPU is the latency is high and it has to queue a lot of updates.)

    How are you going to deal with IPs that appear from odd areas? My RR.com IP, and Im
    'm in florida, Shows up as in eastern Europe in most geoIP databases.

    Have you considered a small SAN? Most SANs have mirroring software built in. This software is designed to mirror enterprise data over a distance. (We have had great luck with EMC and their mirroring software) It is completely behind the scenes and works kindof like mysql clustering. Seams like it would be easier and less labor intensive than doing this every houd or so with a script or rsync etc.
    Rock solid hosting and dedicated servers since 1998!
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  15. #15
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    Thanks for the response Datums. We will be putting this through a lot of testing, and making a lot of chances - before we make it publically available.

    It's currently in an early beta, and I expect a lot of changes will be made by February.

    Here's an example machine specification.

    Dual Intel Xeon 5130 (Dual Core) @ 2GHZ (4MB Cache)
    Hard Drive (Either: (Dual 146GB SCSI / Dual 250GB SATA-II) + 500GB SATA-II)
    4GB Memory (Current test machines only have 2GB).
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by vantage255
    Have you tested mysql clustering over this distance yet?
    It is pretty sensative to latency.
    (AKA is can consume a LOT of CPU is the latency is high and it has to queue a lot of updates.)

    How are you going to deal with IPs that appear from odd areas? My RR.com IP, and Im
    'm in florida, Shows up as in eastern Europe in most geoIP databases.

    Have you considered a small SAN? Most SANs have mirroring software built in. This software is designed to mirror enterprise data over a distance. (We have had great luck with EMC and their mirroring software) It is completely behind the scenes and works kindof like mysql clustering. Seams like it would be easier and less labor intensive than doing this every houd or so with a script or rsync etc.
    I'll have to get back to you on the IP issue.

    I'm currently looking into a SAN.

    As for the IP issue, I'll have to get back to you on that one.
    kanashimi internet services - Launching Q1, 2007.
    - Premium Level Shared GeoIP Mirrored Hosting.
    - Your Data Is Mirrored Over 7 Datacenters!

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    10,710
    If you had your own ASN you could do an IP anycast setup where you have one IP that is physically multiple servers.

    cachefly.cachefly.net is like that.

  18. #18
    HI,

    This is something i have been looking at implementing for my own clients who a lot of are large ecommerce sites or businesses where the e-mail is a very important method of communication.

    What are you doing for the redundancy for e-mail?

    Also im not sure if every 15 minutes would be fast enough, for example say someone adds a product to an ecommerce site. The database would be replicated immediately but the image they upload would not be replicated until the sync is done.

    One thing i have been looking at doing is network raid using DRBD where you can have a whole partition mirrored across a network. Think this would probably require a dedicated gigabit connection between each location to work well though.
    http://www.mtcmedia.co.uk - Professional web design, ecommerce and web development solutions
    E-mail Alan @ Mtcmedia.co.uk

  19. #19
    The current stable release of MySQL Cluster runs all in memory. So you will need a significant amount of RAM to able to provide this service. Also the size of a db on the standalone system can triple once it's put on the cluster.
    Datums Internet Solutions, LLC
    Systems Engineering & Managed Hosting Services
    Complex Hosting Consultants

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    North of some border
    Posts
    5,613
    Moved to Other Reviews.

    Lois
    "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." – Theodore Roosevelt

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    NJ
    Posts
    274
    If your market is the enterprise consumer, you should try looking into HP-UX or Solaris utilizing either Service Guard or Veritas clustering. And with out a doubt your going to need a SAN.
    I always did like the clouds

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Tokyo / Japan
    Posts
    492
    Hello Kanashimi,

    I would be interested as a beta tester. The project sounds very interesting.

    Could you PM or e-mail me more info ?

    Best regards
    __--- Nils Valentin ---
    ☆★☆ Speedtest One: Tokyo / Japan ☆★☆ / Feedback
    ☆★☆ Speedtest Two: Tokyo / Japan ☆★☆ / Feedback

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    862
    Quote Originally Posted by Kanashimi
    Layer0: Yes, a user would be redirected to the closest mirror. This is done utilizing GeoIP.

    Extras: Currently, each location has one server - if the "package" takes off as we hope it to, we will be adding redundancy at each seperate location on top of the current solution.

    In terms of security, we'll start with the basics.

    Custom passwords are not allowed, a password must consist of 16 characters minimum, and includes both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and at least two "special" characters.

    We have "wrappers" in place to restrict program access from certain locations (/tmp) e.t.c, and also have both "load" and "traffic" spike alerts. Any account that spikes an alert is investigated within 30 minutes.

    If the account is found to have experienced this spike legitimately (i.e: Digg), then the alert is removed from the system. Should the account be sending out illegal files, the account is immediately suspended and placed on hold.

    Should the traffic spike be of a suspicious nature that we cannot investigate further without liasing with the client, we will place a bandwidth rate (per second) restriction on that user until we can fully affirm their intentions.

    A snapshot of the cluster is taken every 24 hours, and we store snapshots for a period of one week - allowing us to rollback accounts should the worst happen.

    I'll put up an example package configuration

    5GB Space
    50GB Bandwidth
    MySQL Support
    PHP4/PHP5 Support
    Python (mod_python with Django, Twisted e.t.c)
    Ruby on Rails

    - Application Request System
    - (A user can request a specific application/software package to be installed.)

    $29.99/Month
    Thank you, Kanashimi.
    (I was wondering if the thread was deleted because it wasn't accessible for a while.)

    That's a very interesting price for a setup like this.

    Are these servers at different location actively serving the traffic simultaneously?
    Or are they simply hot backups, and only one server would be working unless it goes down?

    If they are all serving the requests depending on the location of the IP, how do you keep them in sync for the dynamic contents?

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