Configuration Advice

[richard]

We would like to use the Flexiscale service as it would appear to be able to offer us some significant benefits.

We would really like to understand what the best configuration would be for our needs.

We host an online collaboration service currently on a single dedicated machine.

The service manages emails, documents, calendars and contacts.

We are looking to put in place a scaleable and high availability solution.
The heart of the application is a MYSQL database currently about 3 gig in size, the dedicated machine is running Windows Server 2003 (Web Edition).
The current dedicated machine is responsible for all elements of the application Apache, MYSQL, Document Storage, SMTP Server , Pop Collector and remote device synchronisation.
Currently bandwidth usage is 40gb inbound and 20gb outbound each month.

Problems currently faced:
Stopping the whole service to backup MYSQL results in reduced actual availability
In the event of a disaster, recovery time would be unacceptable (e.g. database corruption or disk failure)
With the addition of new customers each month we need a robust reliable easily scaleable solution.
What would the configuration look like to best support our needs?
One large multi cpu virtual server?
or indeed breaking the service down and running certain sections on their own virtual server (e.g virtual server for the web server with another operating as the application server and document storage and the third as a DB server.)

Thanks.

[tonylucas]

We would like to use the Flexiscale service as it would appear to be able to offer us some significant benefits.

We would really like to understand what the best configuration would be for our needs.

We host an online collaboration service currently on a single dedicated machine.

The service manages emails, documents, calendars and contacts.

We are looking to put in place a scaleable and high availability solution.
The heart of the application is a MYSQL database currently about 3 gig in size, the dedicated machine is running Windows Server 2003 (Web Edition).
The current dedicated machine is responsible for all elements of the application Apache, MYSQL, Document Storage, SMTP Server , Pop Collector and remote device synchronisation.
Currently bandwidth usage is 40gb inbound and 20gb outbound each month.

Problems currently faced:
Stopping the whole service to backup MYSQL results in reduced actual availability
In the event of a disaster, recovery time would be unacceptable (e.g. database corruption or disk failure)
With the addition of new customers each month we need a robust reliable easily scaleable solution.
What would the configuration look like to best support our needs?
One large multi cpu virtual server?
or indeed breaking the service down and running certain sections on their own virtual server (e.g virtual server for the web server with another operating as the application server and document storage and the third as a DB server.)

Thanks.

Richard,

I can completely understand where you are coming from, we would suggest breaking the service down and running individual virtual servers for the key components (web, mail, DB etc). You could then create a MySQL slave server from which you could do the backups, thus removing any downtime issues.

In terms of downtime issues, the FlexiScale platform itself removes most of these (hardware recovery happens in minutes rather than hours), but this would also give you more flexibility in terms of doing upgrades etc which will help you scale in the future, including integrated load balancing, adding additional servers (and storage) when required etc.

This of course is a generalisation, I do of course know more about your particular solution but I feel that conversation should continue privately.

Regards,

Tony.