Re: [TCLUG:9472] bios

[Scott Dier - dieman <dieman@ringworld.org>]

I would recommend that you analyse traffic and find the minimal impact
time to change hardware.  Setup a secondary box that is really lame and
says "down for maint." or soemthing like that.

> > 1. Production servers should be untouchable. Unless you have some kind of
> > redundant failover cluster thing happening, do not turn your box off.

This doesn't happen in most setups unless you have tons of money.  That
means you are charging for 24x7 from a customer.  Most places quote for
normal with planned downtime, harder rates to compete with.

>   redundant failover = $$$$$ and my company != $$$$$ then reboot box.
Bingo.

> > 2. CPU speed is almost never the limiting factor in computer performance, 
> > especially if the one you already have is a Pentium 450. The upgrade from
> 
>   Actually, the main reason for the cpu upgrade is to support our production
> Oracle database.  Our database is crushing the performance of our webserver.

Get your ass out of oracle.  I heard that it has an insanely expensive
sql connect.  Hopefully you are using persistant connections.  MySql can
do much better in a web-driven environment. (because of the less-expensive
sql connect).

php3 has a cool pconnect that keeps databases persistantly connected :)

Good luck!

---
Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org> #nicnac@efnet 612.301.0265
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