VSI-thinking has recently comissioned a new server for our rack in Canary Wharf, due to come online in March 2010. We talked to our Technical Director to found out a little more about what influences the purchasing decision of such a large scale and importance piece of hardware.
Requirement
VSI-thinking provides many large scale applications for customers together with many important business critical software solutions. Our key consideration is to ensure a high level of performance, which is scalable for the future while still providing long term reliability. Whilst there are many third party hosting companies in the UK, we feel their solutions always fall short of fulfilling these criteria.
Processors
The more processors and cores the better, especially for web servers when there are hunderds of visitors all wanting their data processed. Caching is also very important, processors with larger Level 1 and Level 2 caches are always going to be quicker as they keep the cores fully loaded with processing tasks rather than having to wait to get information from main memeory.
Memory (RAM)
Lots and lots of memory is essential, the more the better. The new server uses the latest DDR3 memory which allows wider bit addressing and runs at higher speeds. With 32Gb of memory, the same as about 8 or 10 desktop computers, the server can handle large data queries entirely in memory.
Hard Disks
When performance is the key drive only SCSI will do and the new server has 15000 RPM drives. These drive not only spin twice as quick as a desk computer drive they have much quicker interface and a huge data cache. There are two RAIDs in the computer, one for the operating system and the other for the web sites and databases.
Redundancy
The disk RAIDs ensure a copy of all data is written whenever the drive is accessed. The memory has parity built in, and the two processors with their 4 cores each help to provide a lot of processing resources. There are physically two network cards and two power supplies to ensure that in the event of a failure a reserve is on hand, ready to take the place of the failed unit.
Summary
At nearly £10,000 for a computer it sounds like a lot of money, but servers like this are highly specialised and provide a level of performance to which third party hosting companies just can't get close.