Hi,

I am new here and I am in process of purchasing a slice and would appreciate if you help me do that.

I am going to use a customized Civi CRM open source application designed to host 10000 users. We can expect only 1000 users to begin with. CiviCRM uses Drupal and Apache on Linux.


The Dbase size is about 35MB and is expected to grow. Basically, the web app is designed for users to enter their field activities and generate very basic reports about their activities like history, monthly performance, etc. A bit of profile management also.

For load balancing, I am planning to have separate machines for dbase and web application. What configuration would you recommend?

We would also need a backup. The website indicates the availability of Mirroring by default.

Please highlight the quality of service.



Thanks,
Avinash

Linodes are very scalable; resizing to a larger node is just a matter of shutting it down while the disk image copies over to the new host. For more urgent upgrades where you can't afford to wait for a disk migration, you can purchase disk or RAM upgrades that can be enabled by a simple reboot (obviously not cost-effective since it's cheaper to upgrade the linode, but it allows emergency upgrades with minimal downtime).

Generally the advice most people give for this sort of thing is to start small and resize the linode to a larger one if you outgrow it.

How much RAM is required is really dependent on how you configure the server, what the usage patterns are like, etc... It also depends on your budget. If you want to have separate database and application servers from the get-go, you'd probably be OK to start with two 512s and see how it goes from there; if it turns out that that's not enough RAM, it only takes a few minutes to get that resized to a 1024; it's a largely automated process.

One important thing to keep in mind if you want to use Apache is that Apache is very badly configured out of the box; it comes configured for servers with many gigabytes of RAM. You're going to need to tweak it before use unless you're planning to throw 8GB of RAM at it. Other servers like nginx and lighttpd have more sane default configurations.

Thank You so much for your detailed explanation.

Correct me if am wrong, the plans and availability shows only 4GB max - Linode 4096. Cant I go beyond 4GB?

Avinash

The order page goes up to 20GB.

Thanks.

I don't know much about CiviCRM, but Drupal on Apache doesn't need 8GB of RAM to handle a large number of users if properly configured...

Guspaz,

Thank You for your response.

I read from other posts that, "Linode is a high-end unmanaged cloud provider" , if its un-managed, the first things comes to my mind is "Data Security". Will Linode take care of this? Bcoz, we intend to use very vital data that cannot be shared with anybody outside the company.

So of course you immediately think "I know, lets put this vital top secret data on the cloud".

Un-managed means security is COMPLETELY up to you and your application config.

Un-managed means that Linode doesn't install software, update software, configure software, etc on your node (VPS). They provide and maintain the physical host machines, network, and other infrastructure. Other than that, installing, configuring and updating the software on your virtual private server is 100% on you.

It's more secure than a shared host and I'd trust Linode employees a lot further than those at most hosting companies.

Thank You for your responses.

So, it is an un-managed cloud solution.

Is there anybody who has hosted Apache/Linux/Drupal/MySql web application on these servers? Would like to hear a few words from them. Would appreciate if you highlight on the OS and App fine tuning and security aspects.

Also, all the users for this application are spreadout throughout India. Sounds Silly, would this attract any network speed or bandwidth issue as the servers are in US/UK?

I am sorry I am asking too many questions. I just want to be absolutely sure and convinced before I go ahead with the purchase.

Thanks a Ton!
Avinash

You can test speed to the various datacenters from your location: http://www.linode.com/speedtest/

There is more discussion on this and on tuning server settings in the Performance and Tuning forum.

Thanks. I have gone through these pages.

If i choose separate servers for dbase and web application, what aspect do i have to take care while purchasing as they both need to be in the same network.

Also, can somebody share the Server's processor details.

When you add a linode to your account, the system asks which datacenter you would like it to be in. Just make sure to choose the same one.
(If you decide you want to change your mind later, you can deploy a new node where you want then build from scratch and clone your node to it, or just open a ticket asking to move the machine.)


Re: CPU, I've got access to 4x of these:
With Xen you get your "fair-share" but can use more if you the others on the machine aren't using the CPU


processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 26
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5520 @ 2.27GHz
stepping : 5
cpu MHz : 2266.746
cache size : 8192 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp : yes
flags : fpu de tsc msr pae cx8 sep cmov pat clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx lm constant_tsc rep_good nonstop_tsc pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt hypervisor lahf_lm
bogomips : 4533.49
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Thanks for writing.

Processor says: 0 , so its a single processor details. Does your node have multiple processors?

I want to know how many processors will i get as a minimum configuration.


[/quote]

Re: CPU, I've got access to 4x of these:
With Xen you get your "fair-share" but can use more if you the others on the machine aren't using the CPU

[/quote]

Did you even read the section you quoted?