Re: Which hardware ?

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

>> Which OS would you use ? (knowing that there will be a JDK 1.6 installed
>> too)
>
> . . .I think this is the real mistake.  Get a separate database box.
> It's approximately impossible to tune a box correctly for both your
> application and your database, in my experience.

I can't remember the last time I deployed a PG box that didn't have a Java
app or three on it, too.  You've got even odds that putting it a separate
system will even be a improvement.  Yes, if the Java app is a pig and the
machine doesn't have enough resources, separating it out to another system
will help.  But there are plenty of these buggers that will end up so much
slower from the additional network latency that it's a net loss (depends
on how the app groups its requests for rows).

If you know enough about Java to watch things like how much memory the
JVMs are taking up, I wouldn't hesitate to put them all on the same
machine.  Considering that Lionel's system seems pretty overpowered for
what he's doing--runs plenty fast on a much slower system, enough RAM to
hold a large portion of the primary tables and database, all batch updates
that don't really need a good RAID setup--I'd say "looks good" here and
recommend he just follow the plan he outlined.  Just watch the system with
top for a bit under load to make sure the Java processes are staying under
control.

As for OS, a RHEL5 or clone like CentOS should work fine here, which is
more appropriate depends on your support requirements.  I would recommend
against using FreeBSD as it's not the friendliest Java platform, and the
additional complexity of Solaris seems like overkill for your app.
Basically, evem though it's available for more of them, I only consider
deploying a Java app on one of the mainstream platforms listed at
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp right now because those are the
mature releases.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD