[ic] Choosing hardware (fwd)

[Gert van der Spoel]

DB writes: 

> Hi - I'm running a somewhat busy site with 400,000 skus using IC 5.2 and
> mysql on Centos 4.1 on a dual Xeon box. From time to time the cpu load
> goes rather high causing the site to slow. These periods of high load
> seem to correspond to spider sessions.  
> 
> I'm considering bringing a second box online and I'm trying to decide on
> the best approach. Either some type of load balancing such as ha-linux,
> or maybe just moving the mysql to one box leaving IC and apache on the
> other.  
> 
> Does anyone have a suggestion on the best way to proceed? Finding out
> exactly what's happening during these high cpu load spikes seems like a
> logical first step. Any other advice?  
> 
> DB

Did you find out what happens when you have this high cpu load? Some things 
to consider perhaps:
 - If a restart of IC would deal with lowering the cpu load at once, that 
would be an easy work around probably. Depending on cpu load to restart IC
 - Are your product pages static? If not then you could reduce your database 
queries by having the product pages be static?
 - Any ways you could tune your database further (indexes etc)
 - If it's your Apache upping the load then you could first looking into 
leaning & meaning your apache, toss out all that's not needed for your set 
up (if not already done)
 - I have not much experience with load balancing, but you could perhaps 
check out pound (www.apsis.ch/pound/). This is probably more for when you 
have 2 machines doing the same thing. 

If it turns out one specific application causing the trouble, then putting 
this application to another machine is usually not the solution, because 
then that machine will eventually become the bottleneck again. Spreading the 
load of that application over more machines might then be something to 
consider. I usually prefer to keep away form loadbalancing as much as 
possible, because it creates a lot of extra work/maintenance. 

Good luck, I'm curious to how you have solved your problem (if you have). 

CU, 

Gert