[BlueOnyx:00669] Re: blue onyx Infrastructure

[Chris Gebhardt - VIRTBIZ Internet]

don caprio wrote:
> I'm considering switching over to BlueQuartz and have some basic newbie 
> questions.

Welcome!

> I'm going to be moving to a new co-lo. ISP has assigned me a subnet'd 
> class C network. I have
> 5 available static IP's. I'm going to be using a Netscreen for my 
> firewall which leaves me 4 IP's.

Do you mean you're getting a /29 CIDR (subnet) carved out of a "class 
C"?    You might want to think about asking for a /28 (16 total, 13 
usable) because from the below it sounds like you will need more - 
unless you're using some sort of NAT.

Also... does your Netscreen have the guts to stand in front of your 
operations?   It always amazes me when customers bring half a rack of 
gear into the datacenter and stick a home / small business router in 
front of it.  Tens of thousands of dollars worth of high-end server 
equipment, all with dual redundant power supplies, RAID, etc, and then 
it all plugs into this little box.   Guess where the point of failure 
usually is?    All I'm saying here is make sure you are comfortable. 
Once I hear that from a customer, I shut my mouth.   Until the first 
"please reboot my router" ticket.  :)

> Are there folks out there that are running ALL of your internet services 
> on a single server (DNS,sendmail,
> ftp, http, https,mysql)? I still plan on using my dedicated mail gateway 
> for spam and virus protection (mailcleaner).

Absolutely.  That's the whole point of a hosting appliance, which is 
what the Cobalt was years ago and BlueOnyx (BX) is the progeny of its DNA.

Of course, if you want to put a mail gateway in front of your hosting 
boxes, that's certainly not a problem.  (We have done that for many years).

An odd exception that springs to mind is a large-ish customer of ours 
(US residents see their commercials during every NFL game) that has a 
handful of old RaQ-XTRs, with each having been hacked up to process 
certain bits and pieces of their site.  One for images, another for 
Oracle (yes...), another for MySQL (yes, still... it's odd), and various 
for the actual content pages of various bits and pieces of their sites.

The original developers set things up this way for a reason.  Nobody now 
can figure out what that reason is, but it's too cumbersome to change. 
So we keep their old XTRs cranking along!   There are plans to do much 
consolidation in the next re-write of the site, but that's been talked 
about since about the time that Sausalito got open-sourced!  :)

Like I say - odd exception.

Of course, the downside to having all services on a single machine is 
that all your eggs are in one basket.   But practically speaking, the 
trade-off is well worth it for the sake of simplicity.   If you're like 
me, you enjoy a system that "just works".

> I'll be hosting a couple dozen domains. Most small and not much traffic. 
> One site is JSP based and is my largest
> customer.

Again I wonder if just 4 usable IP's is going to be enough for you, but 
you'd know better than me.  Take away one for your mail gateway and now 
you're down to just 3 for sites or whatever other services you're 
running.  Hope you don't have (m)any domains running SSL!  :)

> I'd be interested in any comments you guys have on best practices for  
> BlueOynx infrastructure design. I'm
> considering using a SunFire quad core with 8GB RAM as my BlueOynx server. 

Certainly a capable machine.  I would venture to say "overkill" for "a 
couple dozen domains", but then... is there such a thing as too much 
power?  :)

Generally, keep in mind that BX is designed as a hosting appliance. 
It's an all-in-one system.  We have many, many customers that use a 
single server for their entire hosting operation.  We have others that 
use several to a dozen or more BQ/BX servers in conjunction with other 
custom systems doing specialized jobs.

I would be hard pressed to tell you "the right way" to set up your 
infrastructure, since it varies so much based on individual needs - and 
no 2 of our customers have the exact same requirements.  But again, 
generally speaking, I think your ideas are sound.

-- 
Chris Gebhardt
VIRTBIZ Internet Services
Access, Web Hosting, Colocation, Dedicated
www.virtbiz.com | toll-free (866) 4 VIRTBIZ