Server spec for web server

Hi

Web server isn't a demanding task so mega mogobips
wouldn't be my first concern.

I'd pick something that has plenty of raid disk capacity so
you don't handcuff yourself very quickly should some
large hosting requirement come along.

If uninterupted hosting is vital (it isn't always), then I'd
pick up something with hot-swappable fans and power
supplies.

Use some sort of monitoring software, nagios is good. So
when you have an outage you're not finding out from your
customers first!

Don't allow Tom, Dick and Mary to upload unknown,
untrusted cgi and php.

Don't pay through the socket for OS or Server, when Linux
and Apache and PHP are so well proven and popular,
spend the cash on more RAID and a UPS.

Just my penny'worth

Bob.

I guess the answer may depend on the site usage. Web
servers usually have high demands for hardware. We us a
lot of Dell PowerEdge 1850 and 2950. They're dual core
and I usually drop 4GB of memory in them. In most cases
this might be considered overkill.

The bigger issue you may need to consider is bandwidth.
Not just external bandwith but looking at the speed
limitations on your own network. Are your switches and
internal nics going to provide the preformance you
require? In our situation I can run 100mb full and that
works great for us.

For redundency make sure you are using a raid solution.
We mirror our OS drive and usually hold the data on a raid
5 partition. Finally I would also suggest with whatever
server you choose, make sure to purcahse platinum
support. If your data is as valuable as it sounds, you want
immediate action to any failed hardware. Platinum usually
gets you 4 hour turn around on failed hardware.

Need far more information to offer suggestions than just generalities. For instance, what your web site will do [flash, movies, # of pages, what a user will do] what your projected hits per hour might be, your available internet bandwidth is, redudancy/failover plan, all determines what you will need to have a web presence.

So the real question is What's your plan?

A couple of page web site with little site visits doesn't need a hefty server or a big internet pipe, even with 2 servers in round robin redudancy.

A site like Techrepublic probably has a large cluster of web servers and a OC3 or OC8 pipe.

We use the mid-tier product from Oracle, called I believe Oracle Application Server. It includes Oracle Http Server (OHS), which is essentially a customized version of Apache.

The plus side to this approach is that all the expertise our team-members already have with running Apache carries over to OHS. Plus we can lean on Oracle support to help whenever we run into any config or support issues.

The downside is that we can't just upgrade as Apache upgrades. We are locked into Oracle's upgrade/patch cycle which is never in lock-step with core Apache's upgrades and bug fixes. Fixes get rolled out whenever Oracle decides, not whenever core Apache gets patched.

Thank you all for the replies.

Yes, it is important to make an inform decision about the server and platform that we go to. So we use AWStat to log the web server while using MySQL tools to keep track of the databases. What other management tools are you using to manage and monitor Apache and MySQL?

Our idea is to create a high-availability webservers with a little room to grow in the future (moderate grow in K12 environment.)

We are currently look at IBM (3450/3550) and Dell 1950 servers to host our relatively small MySQL databases. They are similar in spec: 2GHz Dual Core AMD/Intel processor, 4GB memory, hardware RAID, and redundant power. The main difference is Dell offers RAID 5 with 3 of 73GB SAS while IBM offers RAID 0/1 with 2 SATA.

As far as OS, we know for sure to go with Linux. But we will have to ask for your folks experiences with RHLE4 and Suse 10.2?

Your advices are much appriciated.