[geeks] Big Blue Smoke

[alex j avriette]

>> well are you talking perl scripts? jsp? asp? static html? "web pages"
>> covers a whole lot of things.
>
> I'm talking about everything needed to get the page presented
> to the requester.
-snip-
>>> Web server:  A system that serves web pages.
>
>> define "web page."
>
> The page the requester sees.

the problem here is your definition of web page. modern web applications 
are built on a multitude of various servers and services. this is 
largely the result of java's (ahem) bloat, but now a "web server" is 
just that -- it streams text files over port 80. i cant give you all the 
definition of servlet, portlet, server pages, application servers, 
services servers, and all that other hooey, but the idea is you have 
servers that are designed for the task. a netra is an excellent 
webserver. we use dual or quad processor 280Rs for our application 
servers, and also for our database servers. all told, what the public 
sees as our "web server" is really a collection of probably 30 machines 
on 4-5 racks (i'm not sure whether to count storage here).

we get between 6-10 million hits a day, and we're looking to double or 
triple that come june (going live, new site, new product, and so on...).

> If the code is written so it can't thread across multiple
> systems, and you need more CPU than one system has, then
> the load balancer won't help.

web servers dont use more than one cpu. read from $file, print to 
$socket. no big deal.

> No, but seeing pictures of data centers is interesting.

yep. i'll be getting pictures this coming week and posting, fer sher.

> If they've got data to back up the request, then there's
> a reason they are asking.  If they've got money to back up
> the request, that's even better.

i think this, and the above, is the crux of this argument. i agree with 
you that for large multithousand-user applications should live on large 
capable servers. a rack-o-netras is not appropriate for that. i dont 
think im picking at nits or being pedantic when i say that what you 
suggested -- using a database for a farm of web servers -- is not what 
you are now saying.

> I was so bored one weekend out of town I watched
> "Titanic".  I was hoping Billy Zane's character
> would kill that Leonardo shithead, but at least
> he became a popsickle.

heh, my girlfriend at the time wanted to watch that movie. so i agreed 
to go on one condition: that she let me sleep through the movie and just 
wake me up when leonardo dies.

alex