[Zope] Server specs.

[Alexander Staubo]

> Hi all,
> 
> Regarding the comments I received, we decided to use following
> configuration for server.
[snip]
> 
> Somebody any recommendations?
> 

Yes.

Although you don't say what kind of environment this is --
sales/journaling system? Intranet? Mail? Document management? Or what
kind of load. "About 500-600 will ask less intensive requests" -- yes,
but when? Distributed over a day? Concurrently? What about your data?
Lots of rows, lots of data, or both? And so forth.

Based on the information you do give out:

Python is a real CPU sponge, and for this kind of load I'd definitely
bump the horsepower up to a dual Pentium III Xeon 500MHz, 512KB L2
cache. Around $1100 per CPU. That said, however, I don't know how well
Linux scales to two CPUs; for web serving, recent benchmarks have
pointed out that it doesn't scale well at all.

Fast disks. Ultra SCSI at a minimum, preferably Wide and/or Ultra2 SCSI,
preferably striped volumes. Zope may not be the real disk hog, but
database servers are. I bet PostgreSQL isn't an exception; I know Sybase
is.

RAM is crucial, but you'll probably survive on 256MB, although with your
kind of environment I'd personally opt for 512MB at a minimum.

Multiple-port or multiple network cards. Multiport NICs support port
failover and typically come with load balancing. Coupled with one or
more switches, these are real killers when it comes to bandwidth and
responsiveness.

> Kind Regards, Tom.

-- 
Alexander Staubo             http://www.mop.no/~alex/
"QED?" said Russell.
"It's Latin," said Morgan. "It means, 'So there you bastard'."
--Robert Rankin, _Nostramadus Ate My Hamster_