sniping.org » Sun

What I Look for in a (Linux) Server System

fdiv_bug — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:05:13 +0000

A coworker of mine and I had discussed my stance on Apple — it hasn’t really changed much since I wrote that, in case you’re wondering — and she asked me for my thoughts on what I look for and expect in a Linux system, so I offered to write them down here. Most of these considerations and observations also apply to other Unix, or even non-Unix systems, too.

Manageability

I should be able to deploy fifty systems as easily as I can deploy one system.

This is easily the most important aspect to any system. The various Linux distributions provide a handful of ways of doing it, and we’ve been very successful with Red Hat Kickstart functionality in the CentOS distro. With Kickstart and network booting via PXE, I can deploy a new Linux box without even really having to set hands on it — our operations team can power the system on and hit F12. Solutions like this exist for other systems, and are included out-of-the-box with Mac OS X (provided you have a Mac OS X Server machine to serve up the NetBoot images or are clever enough to hack it together yourself), so it’s hardly unique to Linux, but I would not deploy any OS that doesn’t have rapid provisioning and installation capabilities.

Packaging

I should be able to install a piece of software on fifty servers as easily as I can install it on one server.

The point of a server is to provide services to users, and to do so requires software, whether it’s a web server like Apache or IIS, an NFS server daemon, Windows file sharing services, or any of another effectively limitless number of options. Sometimes this software is part of the core system — in the case of a Windows file server, you don’t need to add anything else to the system for it to be able to fulfill that role. Other times it’s included with the system but is a separate part — this is more commonly the case in the Unix world where, for instance, Apache might be available out of the box but it’s not a core part of the OS. And in the third case you’ll find software that needs to be obtained from somewhere else and built or installed on the systems on which it will run — commercial software and lesser-known or newer Open Source software tends to fall into this category since it’s either unavailable for wide distribution or isn’t popular enough to come with your distribution. It’s largely these latter pieces of software which concern me the most, since they’re the ones that cause the most trouble. By providing me with an “easy” mechanism for packing and deploying a piece of software and all its dependencies, I can manage the software installed on my various systems as cohesive units. Think of it like a mason considering each brick in the wall he’s building: He might get most of his bricks prefabricated, while forging some of his own for applying a special unique style along the top, for instance. He can rely on the bricks he bought from a brickyard just as I can rely on the software packages provided with my distribution and depend on them for packages I’m building. Most of the Linux distributions have this pretty much nailed down, Solaris provides decent facilities for creating new packages, and even Windows has MSI bundles that can be deployed via Group Policy Objects in Active Directory. Mac OS X, however, is laughably bad in this area. There are no standards or even common practices for packaging software, and while the tools are available for creating them, no one’s packages can be expected to play well with anyone else’s. If you can’t count on the package infrastructure, then you can’t count on packaging.

Transparency and Accountability

I should be able to know exactly what code is going on to my systems and why.

This is Linux’s — and, to be fair, the various BSDs, and OpenSolaris as well — strength in the enterprise. When I’m installing updated software or OS bits, I want to have the opportunity to examine exactly what I’m putting on there and if things have changed, I want to know who changed them. Bug tracking systems such as Red Hat’s Bugzilla and Ubuntu’s Launchpad enable me to see precisely what changed and who changed it, leaving me with a feeling of safety and comfort that I’m not pushing changes which may cause other breakages. Furthermore, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat is very careful to only push bugfixes or security enhancements and not new features. You don’t necessarily want a server to have the latest and greatest features; you want it to be stable and do its job. Obviously this level of transparency isn’t possible with Windows, and only some pieces of Mac OS X are Open Source, but at least you do have a vendor you can talk to if any problems do surface.

Monitoring

I should be able to see what’s going on with my servers and services using open protocols and standardized tools.

If I want to keep track of system load, memory usage, network bandwidth consumption, temperature, or any of another number of parameters, I should be able to use the tools of my choice. Linux excels in this area by utilizing the net-snmp tools, allowing me to query anything I can conceive of using the open SNMP protocol. Mac OS X Server also utilizes net-snmp, but last I tried to work with it I had a whole host of problems trying to get a reasonably recent version to build, and then I had to wrestle with packaging the blasted thing. Our Linux boxes install it automatically during their Kickstart, but even if it had gotten left out I could either yum install net-snmp or apt-get install net-snmp and call it a day. There are SNMP agents available for Windows, as well, but as I understand it all the best ones cost money. net-snmp can also build on Windows, I believe, but I don’t even want to know about what that’d require for deployment to servers.

Hardware Availability and Affordability

I should be able to run my systems on hardware from the vendor of my choice.

Whether I go with a certain vendor because of their lower prices, better support, higher performance, or any other reason, I need the OSes I deploy to be able to run on that hardware. Linux has excellent hardware support, especially in the low- to mid-range server space, and can readily be deployed on commodity systems. Windows has exceptional hardware support, as well. Mac OS X Servers must be bought from Apple or one of Apple’s authorized resellers, and will only — officially — run Mac OS X. If I buy a system from Sun and put Linux on it, then later decide that it’d be better serving us as a Solaris box, I can do that. I could even put Windows on it. If I bought an Apple Xserve and Mac OS X Server wasn’t doing the job, I’d be out a machine and a few thousand dollars.

I believe this covers the major bases. I might update or enhance this with additional information as time goes by, so you may want to watch this space.

So Much for Sun

fdiv_bug — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:22:29 +0000

So Sun finally got back to me about the Try and Buy thing. Long story short, they wanted to authorize a roughly $5,000 — the price of the Ultra 40 I was looking to test drive — charge against my credit card in order for me to get the system. I don’t have that kind of credit just hanging around, so I’m unable to participate in the program. This is unfortunate, and does tend to unfairly punish individuals who aren’t as likely to have that much available credit, unlike businesses, but I can understand why they do it that way. Sun is a business, and they need to protect their assets. Oh well.

Sun Microsystems Experience, Part 2

fdiv_bug — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:46:42 +0000

So I called again to follow up on my Try and Buy order of my Ultra 40, and I spoke with a very friendly and helpful lady who informed me of some things of which I was not previously aware.

First, apparently they’re backlogged on Try and Buy orders. This really isn’t surprising considering that Jonathan’s blog entry got Slashdotted, and so I’m sure there a ton of eager people trying to get their hands on free Sun systems, for trial and hopefully keeping. I’m one of them, I suppose, even though I didn’t come into the thing via Slashdot.

The other thing I learned is that my receipt of the quote apparently does not necessarily indicate I’ve been approved for the trial. She mentioned that after my application was submitted and after I got sent the quote, my application would be sent through credit processing. I have no idea how or if they’ll check any credit information on me since I did not provide them with my Social Security number, nor (that I recall) with permission to run a credit check. Maybe that’s not what the department does for individuals, but I don’t know. Either way, I was operating somewhat under the assumption that the quote indicated I’d been accepted to the Try and Buy program.

She’d said if I hadn’t heard by Friday, to call in again. It’s no sweat, really, since it’s a pretty painless process and so far I’ve gotten to a human very quickly after navigating a mere two menus. I just hope I’m going to be able to participate in this, is all; I’m really looking forward to the chance to work with some of Sun’s workstation hardware, as my laptop is due to be replaced in less than a year and I mightn’t be opposed to the idea of having a less portable workstation.

Sun Microsystems Experience, Part 1

fdiv_bug — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:02:37 +0000

While I still haven’t gotten my Ultra 40 yet, I did take an opportunity today to call Sun and ask them where my order was in the process. The menu options were sensible and easily navigated, and I was speaking with a friendly gentleman in short order. He was unable to find my order in the system, and he said it’s probably in the Try and Buy processing queue or something to that effect. I gave him my email address at his request, and he said he’ll follow up once he knows what’s going on with the order. I’ll update you folks once I’ve heard back from him.

All in all, though, a rather quick and painless phone call, even if it didn’t yield immediate results. It was a rather nice change from the phone operations with which I’m accustomed to dealing. We’ll see how things play out from here.

Test Plan (Draft 1)

fdiv_bug — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 21:33:44 +0000

This is the initial plan for how and what I’m going to be testing on the hopefully forthcoming Sun Ultra 40.

Software Under Test

Ruby on Rails 1.1.2 (Ruby 1.8.4)
PostgreSQL 8.1.4
Apache 2.0.58
Lighttpd 1.4.11 (only on Solaris and Linux)
IIS 6 (only on Windows [duh] and if I can get it working right with Rails; I’ve had problems in the past)
SQL Server 2005 (also only on Windows)

Tests Run

Rails

A stress test suite of my own devising, called “baobab.” It runs some simple tests (like displaying the rails_info stuff) and some designed to mimic real-world performance needs:

Drawing a weekly calendar with several overlapping appointments.
Selecting 25 2048×1536 images from a database and scaling them to thumbnail sizes on the fly using RMagick.
Displaying a single image from the database, five times with image IDs 1-5.

Database

Not yet sure whether I want to craft my own tables and data set and have Apache JMeter run it, or if I just want to use OSDB.

Web Server

I’m going to craft several files of sizes ranging from 1KiB to 1MiB to 5GiB and use Apache JMeter to download the files as quickly as it can. I’ll likely thread the crap out of this.

Tools

Apache JMeter
OSDB (Solaris and Linux only, and I’m not sure about this one since JMeter can also test the database)

I’m going to continue to expand upon my test plan as I think of things to add, and will be adding more blog entries with subsequent drafts. On a less serious note, I’m still trying to decide what to name the system (assuming I do get it). I’m torn between ne-plus, from “ne plus ultra” and lotus, from the flower (not the IBM subdivision).

Fun with a Sun

fdiv_bug — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:07:56 +0000

So I got the quote for my Ultra 40 that I’m going to be using for participating in Sun’s try before you buy program. Hopefully they’ll soon be shipping me a $5,000 system for testing Ruby on Rails.

One thing that I did notice, thanks to a comment on Jonathan’s blog entry about the promo, is that Sun explicitly forbids benchmarking in their Solaris Software License Agreement. To wit, in part 5(f):

You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun.

So, to that end I’m going to not post any hard numbers for benchmarks in Solaris. Instead, I’ll be commenting on how performance feels in relation to Linux — basically whether or not I think it would be a contender in an environment where performance was very important. Then again, it does say “third party.” If I’m publishing them myself, would that not be publishing to a third party? I might take that up with Sun’s legal department, just to be certain.

Sun’s “First One’s Free” Push

fdiv_bug — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:26:18 +0000

Sun Microsystems, venerable system and software vendor of the Unix world, has a rather interesting promo going on. It’s part of their try-before-you-buy deal, where you can get a free 60-day run on one of their mid- or high-end servers and workstations. According to Jonathan in his blog post, if you post a thorough review (in the eyes of the product team) regardless of whether it’s favorable or not, you can keep the system for free. Presumably they’ll take your words and use them as marketing copy if appropriate, but for a free Sun system they could use them to promote an end to tooth-brushing for all I care.

I’ve already submitted my application for an Ultra 40 dual-Opteron workstation. I intend to use it for testing Ruby on Rails deployment and performance. I’d like to install Rails on Solaris 10 (preinstalled!), Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Ubuntu Linux, and Windows Server 2003 to see which one comes across as most manageable, and with the best performance. This is the first of my entries in that series.

I selected the Ultra 40 workstation primarily because that’s what will fit best in my office at home, under my desk, and it gives me the ability to test Windows in the equation as well as Linux distributions that don’t support SPARC64. We’ll see how this shapes up, and I’ll try to keep you posted.