*BSD News Article 79509


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!serv.hinet.net!news.cc.nctu.edu.tw!spring.edu.tw!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.mathworks.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!not-for-mail
From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.infosystems.www.misc
Subject: Re: Unix too slow for a Web server?
Date: 29 Sep 1996 16:48:17 -0500
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <52mqr1$ckp@Mercury.mcs.com>
References: <323ED0BD.222CA97F@pobox.com> <$oVmqBAydTTyEw9t@senator.demon.co.uk> <52lf8n$2ko@verdi.nethelp.no> <324E92CB.6AF154C1@sullivan.bentley.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:132477 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:28240 comp.infosystems.www.misc:44250

In article <324E92CB.6AF154C1@sullivan.bentley.com>,
Mark Hamstra  <mhamstra@sullivan.bentley.com> wrote:
>Steinar Haug wrote:
>> 
>> 10 machines could give you higher reliability than one machine. It will
>> *certainly* give you higher administration costs.
>
>Depends on what you need.  If you need 100% of your services available
>at all times, then using ten machines would give you lower reliability
>than using one machine --unless you were using some sort of fail-over
>scheme that would allow for the still-working machines to fill in for
>the failed machine. 

Unless your single big machine breaks...

>If having less than 100% of your services available
>is better than having none of your services available, then, yes, ten
>machines would be a better solution.

You can probably afford to keep a hot spare that can sub for any of
the 10 small machines.  Yank the drive out of the failed machine
and stuff it in the other box, assign the name and IP and roll on.
Or, if it is the drive that goes, you are just down for the time
it takes to reload that particular drive from tape - and you still
have 90% of your services available.

If you don't have a hot spare, you can still run down to the corner
store and buy one if you're using PC type parts.

Les Mikesell
  les@mcs.com