Proliant 1600 Maxed our processor 2

[Ghost]

Proliant 1600 with PII 450 processor web server is maxing out processor. Anyone else upgraded the processor on their 1600 and if so to what? Any problems?

We'll also be adding a second NIC card while we're in there, but it really is the processor that is going to 100% for periods of time...

TIA

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[lardum]

Hi,

maybe won't be helping you. I had a ProLiant 1600 with a PII 350 Mhz. When i patched the BIOS to a later revision the speed popped up to a 400Mhz instead.. That's strange.

Anyway, i wanted to ask you a question, how many users access your website? I want to know the capacity of my webserver which is a Proliant 1600, 2 x 400Mhz PII, 512 Mb RAM, two NIC's. What are your server config? How many users? Are you running plain HTML?

regards

Lars [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

Proliant 1600, PII 450, 512Mb RAM, one NIC.

Site gets about 1,000,000 impressions per month. Peak times has about 60 concurrent users (very approximate).

Site runs NT4 / ColdFusion / SQL Server

We're looking at going to 2 x PIII500 and throw in another 256Mb DIMM for good measure. Appears that we are processor bound and everything else looks pretty reasonable. Problem is we don't really KNOW anyone else with this much traffic on their web server to ask if we are better off just buying another Compaq ML370 and offloading the site and ColdFusion to it, leaving SQL on its own box

What do you think?

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[lardum]

My server runs as a Webserver only. Hardware info can be found in earlier posting.

I have about 500 users anonymous users logging on each day. And my server peaks with CPU utilization for about 3-4%...

I've separated my webserver from the SQL server because of the performance issues.

I recommend you to run a webstress tool like InetMonitor which can be found at Microsoft's web site. It's free too.

Regards

Lars [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

Lars,

Was that 3-4% of the day meaning spikes?

Did you separate SQL onto just one of your processors? Or, did you move it off onto another box?

Do you have any idea how many concurrent connections you go to? Do they come in all 24 hours, or are there spikes? We run with about 1,500-3,000 users coming in per day.

We'll take a look at getting InetMonitor, thanks.

We don't appear to be NIC card constrained. But, do you recommend adding another card while we are in there with the screwdriver?

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[lardum]

Hi,

the 3-4% spikes were hourly average values.
I separated the SQL to another box on our intranet so that the box isn't reachable from the Internet. The SQL box is also a exact copy of the webserver. Proliant 1600, 2x400Mhz, double NIC's, 512Mb RAM.

I use two NIC's because of the redundancy options. Not for performance. If you need fault tolerant NIC, then put it in. I mean, Compaq NIC's arent that expensive.

Regards

Lars [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

You running NT4? We are.

Supposedly moving to Windows2000 will get us a performance enhancement. Have you heard anything about that?

If its not a big improvement I'd rather not upgrade. Dropping in another PII450 processor and a NIC card is not that big of a deal... Changing the operating system could take lots of time and screw up the box.

We may also buy the ML370 with some of these goodies and just leave this box alone too. Moving the site to the new box and leaving SQL in this one would be nice. The 1600 has run like a champ the last 17 months...

Thanks a lot for posting by the way. Nice to know there is someone else out there running a site on about our same configuration.

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[lardum]

I'm running Win2K because of two reasons:

1. Performance.
2. Fault tolerance.

Regarding the performance i've heard that IIS 5.0 that comes bundled with Win2K has generally better performance. Why, i don't know... If you ask if i noticed any performance issues, i can't answer. I set the site up, and my customers visit it. I've never heard any complaints anyway.

Regarding the fault tolerance, if an IIS-application goes down you can configure it to restart it self or run in seperate memory spaces.

I think it works great under Win2K. But, i don't have much visits yet. I'm counting on that the site will explode in 2 months or something, when we get more customers...

Regards

Lars [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

Post here in a couple months and let us know how you handled your "explosion". ;-)

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[Arisap]

I agree with Lardum. The SQL server should be running on a separate box. Also, when you installed IIS on NT did you follow the Instrauctions from Microsoft? They have a document which outlines the supported installation procedures. I have worked in environemts with similar servers getting hundreds oh hits an hour and the processor never touches five percent. Additionally, If your SQl DB is on the web server, it is reachable to outside users and this is a tremendous security breach. [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

Arisap

I agree on the security thing. That is one of the reasons we are looking at just setting up a second box.

Everything is installed properly and the box works great. However, a busy day for us now is 50,000 database calls (or in other words impressions (or pages served) as the two on our site roughly equate to one another).

We also have a few peak hours and the other 20 hours are pretty mild. So, the 2,083 per hour (50,000impressions/24 hours) doesn't really work here. It's more like 8,000 per hour in peak or 133 per minute. At certain spikes in busy times the processor is maxing.

We're not panicking here but rather just trying to keep ahead of the traffic increases. We're not exploding like Lars is talking about but rather increasing steadily and want to make changes about 1-2 months ahead of where we know we're headed...

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[lardum]

I'll try to remember to post our results in a couple of months. Wish you the very best luck anyway.

BTW, do you know any good software for measuring hits, general statistics and so? (Not Perfmon...)

Regards

Lars [sig][/sig]

 

[Ghost]

Funny you say that, we're just about to try a new one. We'll let you know how it goes.

Talked with a buddy about the InetMonitor you suggested and they weren't too hot on it. They recommended this other one. I'll post here if it is any good. It runs on its own PC and monitors traffic I'm told.

We've looked at other tools but they were either VERY invasive and clunky with logging OR they were so ineffective with giving meaningful reporting we deleted them. Kind of a sore spot for us actually.

On the other hand, we weren't that big of a site so why make a mountain out of a molehill. It is more important now to us so we are looking again.

Ghost [sig][/sig]

 

[Guest_imported]

We have a Compaq Proliant 1600 with 450MHz processor and
are wanting to add a second processor. Does it have to also be a 450MHz? And, if so, does anyone know where I can get one?

 

[Sunny79]

To go to multiprocessor, the Processors have to be the same size/speed/stepping. Look on top of your processor, it has a whitish grey stamp on top which should have the speed/size of cache/stepping on processor for example: 80523PY350512PE SL2U3

The 350 after the PY is my speed the 512 is my cache and the SL2 is my stepping on the processor. Make sure you have the same speed/cache and try to have a stepping that is only one number off or the same anything else won't work.

Now for the Processor Upgrade this is how to approach it:
1.Upgrade the system BIOS Firmware
2.Go to F10 and go to Advanced Modeby pressing(Ctrl+A)
3.Go to System Configuration>Configure HW>Review 4.Modify>View Edit details>
5.APIC Mode--Change this to Full Table.
6.Boot to NT and put in the Smart Start CD. Go to Multiprocessor HAL highlight and press upgrade and HAL recovery and press update.
7.When the install asks for the NT 4.0 CD don't put in the 8.CD but assign the directory with the expanded version of the service pack. Boot again and you should be OK.

This should give you a successful processor upgrade.
I am sorry my reply comes so late I hope you have already found an answer. My excuse is that I just found this forum and will be checking these forums very often to help anyone with a question. Good Luck and I really hope this helps.

 

[Ghost]

Sunny,

Thanks for detailing that out for others.

We've split off our database and only run web services now at 2-3 million impressions per month. That ProLiant is a real champ. Runs great!

Kind of wondering what is happening to Lardum...

Ghost

 

[lardum]

Hi Guys,

Sorry for not answering, haven't logged on here for a while. My server runs quite fine. Although i don't have as many hits as you guys do. But my server is doing real heavy image processing jobs meantime hosting the webserver. I'll try to measure it some time this week and post the results here later.

 

[spock2054]

I just installed 2 PIII-600's in my Proliant 1600R. You need to get a thermal upgrade kit due to the increased heat.

 

[Ghost]

Spock2054,

Right, we put that in when we did the upgrade. Thanks for letting others know it is part of the process.

As a little update another Compaq server was added to run the database but this server still runs the website at over 5 million monthly impressions. Runs great.

Ghost