Highend Linux...

[stevens at missioncriticallinux.com (Brian Stevens)]

Frank Ramsay wrote:

> to find a way to use Linux (or at very least open source tools).  So I'm
> looking for some information on speed, security, accuracy, reliability, etc
> (preferably with comparisons) for web server clustering and database
> clustering (this needs to include Oracle).  As well as possible hardware
> vendors for large rack mount clusters w/backup storage.  Right now I'm
> looking at IBM, Compac, Penguin Computing, and VA Linux systems.
> 
> Also info on customer support options would be helpful (I do have to pitch my design to the suits...)

Frank -

We have put together similar systems. Currently we are building a
no-single-point-of-failure web cluster including Oracle on the back
end. For the front end, we have a pair of Cobalts runnings 
Linux Virtual Server (http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org). The
pair function as hot/standby, routing the web requests to a farm
of real web servers. The web servers all replicate the static
content, and can come and go as the LVS system will just hand
requests to other web servers when one goes down. The third tier
is a HA cluster which supports disk based services. We are using
Oracle, but it could also be mysql, NFS, Samba, etc. The systems
share common storage between them, such that when one node goes
down, the cluster s/w restarts the services on the survivor and
it can still see the storage. We haven't been able to find s/w
that handle this type of clustering correctly so we wrote our own.
Data integrity at this layer is hard, to say the least. Our 
company also provides full support plans and systems integration
(http://www.missioncriticallinux.com) as do most of the OEMs
that you mention. 

Regards,
Brian

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