New server enough?/ Which SuSe version?

[dslteam]

Hello,

I want to buy a new server for my vBulletin 3.0 with 400 users online.

Is this server enough?

Dual Pentium III 1000 Mhz and 2 GByte RAM

What is more important more RAM or faster CPU?

Which SuSe version is better ? Suse 8.2 or 9.0 ?

[walter]

Don't forget about the hard disk - on a busy forum you will gain much when using fast SCSI disks instead of slow IDE ones...

[Zachery]

i wouldnt go pentinum 3 if you dont have the cash for p4 or xeon go AMD MP's dual 1.2's will run fast as hell :)

i wouldnt suggest suse for either, i think Redhat or Mandrake maybe with cpanel would be a good choice :)

[Erwin]

Don't forget FreeBSD. :)

[wfp]

suse support su*ks I got burned on their AMD64 linux

[eva2000]

As to your server requirements, there's a few things to note:

1. vB user online concurrently is based on default 15 min or 900 second cookie time out and is different from mysql concurrent connections

2. vB currently only can use mysql as a backend but later there will be ports to sybase and postgresql way after vB 3.x has been publicly released

3. MySQL regardless of forum software, provided it has the right hardware and mysql, php and apache configuration is good for theoretically 1000 - 1500 mysql concurrent connections (latter figure with the mysql rpm binaries) based on single dual cpu server setup (excluding dual, quad p4 xeons which could handle more)

4. this means you can have 1000 vB users online displayed but they actually can use 200 - 700 concurrent mysql max connections since vB shows those 1000 vB users over 15 mins / 900s and not the exact same second, you can have any combination

i.e.

300 members + 700 guests = 1000 vb users online past 15 min, with only 300 - 500 mysql concurrent connections in use

or

500 members + 500 guests = 1000 vb users online past 15min, with 500 - 800 mysql concurrent connections in use

both examples show 1,000 vb users online past 15mins but the latter example could place more load on the server due to more mysql concurrent connection usage

5. hardware isn't the only aspect which determines vB performance, you have to have apache, php and mysql configured optimally - left unoptimised especially mysql's configuration, then even the most powerful hardware will not perform well

6. if you set your vB timeout cookie higher than default 15 mins, you will show more vB users online - so set timeout cookie in vB admin panel to 30 mins, then the vB user online display will show users on in the past 30 mins thereby inflating the vB user online display - generally the higher the cookie timeout, the higher the vB users online to mysql concurrent connections ratio

with the above points for 1 vB installed and no other site sharing the server:

A single dual cpu server running Red Hat 9 or higher, latest 2.6.x smp stable kernel, PHP 4.3.9 compiled with GD2, and zlib support, CURL and compiled to use MySQL client libraries instead of PHP's own included mysql libraries, MySQL 4.0.22 installed from rpm binary, latest Apache 2.0.x server. Also installing Turck Mmcache http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75878 (needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled for each PHP upgrade in future)

with properly fine tuned mysql, apache and php settings

Dual P4 2.8ghz Xeon 533FSB 512K cache
2GB REG ECC PC3200 DDRAM
4 x 36GB 15,000 rpm SCSI raid 1+0
with 2 x Gigabit Network cards

Would probably handle anyware between 250 - 350 mysql concurrent connections - that would show as X amount of vB users depending on the set vB cookie timeout on the vB forum. So in theory, the lower or closer to default vB cookie timeout of 900 seconds, the closer the vB users online displayed would be to the real mysql concurrent connections in use.

- basically for 400 vB users online over default cookie timeout I'd look at least Dual P4 2.66ghz Xeon with 1.5-2GB ram and scsi disks

[Zachery]

George ;) date

[eva2000]

doh :o

at least it may help people who search the forum :D

[Andreas]

I don't tink dslteam is interested in server optimazation any more - he sold the project several month ago to Intergenia AG ;)