Comments on the following newsitem http://boincstats.com/page/project_news.php?pr=bs#357552

Currently the BOINCstats and Primegrid servers are in different places in the server room. This makes it impossible to have multiple connections between the servers. All traffic between the servers goes over the same cables and switch as the traffic to the internet, clogging up traffic. This will get even worse now that PrimeGrid will add another server. There are also plans to add a new server for BOINCstats/BAM! in the near future, making things even worse.

Another problem is that now the switch that connects everything is not on a UPS, so if the power goes down the servers keep running but the switch does not.
The last main problem is that sometimes we need to reboot the servers and remotely that's a very exciting job since we can't monitor the process, and it has failed in the past resulting in a trip to the datacenter.

So, what will be improved:

• Network traffic will be separated in internal and external traffic
  
• Switch will be UPS backed up
  
• We'll add a IP KVM switch to monitor/control the servers when they are unreachable over the network. (A KVM switch is a device to control multiple computers with one Keyboard, one Mouse and one Monitor. With IP the device can be controlled over the internet.)
  
• Security: the servers will be in a separate closed rack. Nobody can touch them (like accidently pull out a network cable).
  
• The external connection to the internet will be speed up from 100Mbit to 1Gbit.
  
• We can add another UPS layer if the need arises
  

There is also a disadvantage: money. The rack will cost more than the current co-locating, especially since power cost are directly charged to us. We also need to buy the IP KVM, and APC Masterdwitch (to remotely reboot the servers) and a few other small parts.

So, where do you come in? If you take a look over at the donations page you can see a little drama there. Donations aren't exactly covering the current hosting costs. Now this is not a big deal, at the moment I'm able to cover the cost. But I do ask you to donate a little to help us buy the IP KVM switch. It's a lot of money so any help is appreciated. In return we will give you a better BOINCstats, BAM! and PrimeGrid!

If you do not want to donate using Paypal you can donate directly to my bank account, using the following details:
<snip />

If you wish to have a crown in the forum and your sig, then add "BAM! xxxxx" (where xxxxx is your BAM! account number ) to the description and also send me a PM.

Thanks!

I'd like to add that we have a little space left in the rack (about 6U) and that we (Rytis and I) like to offer this space to any BOINC project that needs a decent hosting. There are of course a few terms:

• Project provides the server or the means to build one
  
• As we do have to pay for the power cost, so will the project for it's usage
  
• Project pays a small part of the rack rent (to be determined)
  
• We have lot's of unused bandwidth, but bandwidth will be monitored and should be within reason
  

edit: typo
edit2: added bank details

If I may, the price that you pay for co-location is freaking expensive. Have you tried shopping around the world for a cheaper service, even if it comes down to managing the server across an ocean through an IP KVM?

Good luck.

Managing them across the ocean is not a problem. What is, is getting the servers there. We own the servers (even hand build them) and getting them in the US might be a problem.

I shopped around in the Netherlands, this is one of the cheapest data centers here.

You probably don't want to bother to ship PCs across the ocean, but how about in the Netherlands' vicinity, like Belgium and Germany? I'm just trying to suggest you to broaden your geographic search a bit.

HTH

The main advantage of the current datacenter is that it's not too far away in case of trouble. Only 60km (and only 5km from where I work). Belgium is close but really expensive (they are still in the dark ages of the internet). Germany's closest datacenter is at least a two hours drive away.

Depending on the costs, 2h away is not that bad, especially if you can make do with an IP KVM for most issues. Of course, at the end of the day, the decision is totally yours.

Good luck again.

hmm - you might check hetzner.de.

i've no idea what BOINCstats needs, but you can hire decent root-servers starting @ 49 EUR..

or server4you.de, i think they offer co-location in DusselDorf

about donations - i don't do things like PayPal - any other way?

Checked it. The root-servers are not fast enough. For BS and PG we are talking about dual CPU dual/quod core and SCSI/SAS drives with at least 8GB. Co-location is about the same price as here. But keep the ideas coming.

I'll add bank details to the second post.

you might want to add that to the donations page too..

willy, did you check interconnect.nl ?

I just did. Looking at half a rack (about 20~24U) they are about the same cost as the current datacenter, but the setup fee over 2x as high (€690). I'll send them an email for a tailored price.

After a closer look, monthly cost are 1.5x as high.

Make sure you put the KVM on UPS as well.

Of course

Ich kann nicht gut Englisch darum das ganze in Deutsch aber du bist glaube ich Holländer und glaube du versteht es!

Ich glaube verstanden zu haben das ihr auf ein 19" Rack umsteigen wollt. 19" Teile sind teuer und darum mache ich euch einen vorschlag!
Auch ich stand vor der Entscheidung ein 19" Rack anzuschaffen gab es aber aus finanziellen Gründen auf und entschloß mich folgendes System aufzubauen. Ihr könnt wenn ihr wollt meinen Blog besuchen, dort sind Preise und Lieferadressen hinterlegt sowie auch Fotos seit heute betreibe ich 3x4 Kerne (12Cores) .(http://computertagebuch.over-blog.net/).

Ich kann euch, vorausgesetzt ihr bringt das Geld auf, folgendes System als Server anbieten, zusammenbau übernehme ich bzw. ab morgen meine neue Firma , wenn ihr wollt.

4 Gehäuse, Desktop, stapelbar!!!!!, keine Hitzeproblem, inkl. Netzteil
4 QuadCore CPUs Intel Q6700 boxed = 16 Kerne !!! Milkyway@home Leistung ca. 22.000 Credits/day
4 Motherboards, Grafik Onboard
4x4GB Speicher = 16GB RAM
1-4x Ubuntu kostenlos! 64bit
1-4 Festplatten, je nachdem wie ihr es ansteuern wollt
1 DVD Laufwerk
sonstiges: Netzwerkkabel (ansteuerung als Nodes), Router müsst ihr wissen was ihr braucht

Preis in etwa: unter 1500.- €uronen, ich trage einen Teil dazu bei, sofern sich mein Blog finanziell positiv entwickelt, bin aber ehrlich gesagt noch 2 Monate davon entfernt.

Grüße aus Österreich

Flyer1970
http://computertagebuch.over-blog.net

Have you think about your datacenter health and security :

It must always be up (24 on 24 7/7 days )

=> prevent electricity outage (double electric plug / Battery)
=> prevent shutdown/problem with high temperatures.. (Air conditioning)

This is all taken care of (now ). The datacenter did have some problems with temperature and electricitry (it's a new datacenter but in and older building). Recently (as in the last half year) air conditioning units have been added and in the last week the complete APC and fast electric switches were replaced. There is also a diesel generator backup.

In the rack we will get two no-break phases (backup by APC and diesel generator) and one break phase.

It sounds great!

Reading this I quickly ran over to the donation page, hehe.
First little amount for the APC Masterswitch is in...

Hi there, may I suggest a Virtual machines solution ? They're affordable, portable, fault tolerant, load balanced and can be remotely managed. Maybe we can help in our server farm in Switzerland. Let us know the servers load and the needed bandwidth.

Manfredo
Warinet Global Services SA

http://www.boincstats.com/signature/user_421539.gif

You may but that's actually where we came from. BOINCstats started out as a "normal" website on a shared server. After about four weeks I was forced to go to a virtual server. In the beginning this was fast enough, but after a few months the updates took too long. On top of that, the server owner requested that I stop running the scripts that slowed down the server (meaning: stop the stats updates).

Basically, BS needs a dedicated server (actually two) and fast ones too. Can't speak for Rytis (PG) but from what I see on the server (load) he needs dedicated too.

Ok Willy, it seems you don't need of dedicated servers, but dedicated "resources". Actually, we host customers that own web servers with 187k and more unique hits per day, so they've a big load on their database. Basically, our 3 BOINC hosts are dedicated VM's that never stops computing 24/24h. Physical hosts are HP DL360G5 2x QuadCore Xeon processors, 20Gb Memory and, on those, we host about ten VM's more. I think that your actual server owner doesn't like your presence....
So, the only problem I see, at the moment, is bandwith consumption, 'cause we've to buy it from Swisscom. I understand that if you need a physical solution you must found it near you, but if you still want to stay in the Virtual world, you will need not any KVM to manage your servers. We've no problems to host your VM's at a symbolic fee (but the bandwith) in our farm.

If you want to know more of us, please go to http://www.wari.net
My profile is here: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/manfredo/miserocchi
My e-mail: mis@wari.net

All the best
Manfredo

Virtualisation can be quite ressource friendly. We have one at work that have 16 quad cpu, 64gig of ram and about 3 tera of SAS raid 6+2 hotspare. Also, it have 10 Gigabytes NIC. We have ad 2 fiberchannel card to connect to the 2 SAN of 2tera each, those are 8gb fiberchannel cards. Believe me, I'm sure it can be a great idea. Problem is: it's not a cheap solution. Also, as in most server, it's running with 2 psu to prevent power failure. It's running on vmOS so there's NO management at the console itself, everything is ran using vmware enterprise management console remotly. We never enter the server room, except to change a failed hardware or change network cable destination.

also, you can manage how much cpu,ram,hdd and nic each vm machine can use. There's even option to tell the vm machine to use all available ressources and have a minimum of x ressources dedicated on that machine, this way you use unused ressources from other computer.

We have really thought this through. Virtualisation is fine for some servers/processes but I never supported the idea of a virtualised busy SQL server. It could be doable if you have disks that are dedicated to that virtual server, but then you are close to a dedicated machine.

Both BOINCstats servers put a high load on the MySQL database. The webserver serves on average ~1.5 million hits per day of which 75k are full pages with charts, sigs etc. It also serves those charts and sigs for other sites where users added them to their profile or webpage. THe www server also hosts BAM!. I don't think anybody wants this server as its friendly neighbor on a shared server.

The database server does nothing else than run stats updates all day. Hundreds of SQL queries/second with almost 100% CPU load (Athlon X2). Not a friendly server as well me think.

I'm sure Willy knows best what he actually needs, so let's all give something in return for the service that he provides free of charge.