Hardware advice please

Hi all, I am looking for advice on what servers to buy to replace our existing informix db servers. We have to replace them, because they are dinosaurs and could pack up at any moment. Unfortunately I don't really have any idea what would be good to get as I've never been involved in buying hardware before. So I'd be grateful for any advice / recommendations / even names of good knowledgable suppliers in the UK ! We currently run Informix 9.21 on Solaris - but - are considering a switch to Linux and an upgrade to Informix 11 . (have downloaded the developer edition to test on Centos5) This is what we have currently : 3 separate production db's ( all small - under 30 GB ) on separate sun Solaris servers - 2 E450's : 4 sparc processors 400MHz ; 2GB ram 1 E4500 : 8 processors (same 400 MHz) ; 8GB ram The dbs serve web applications; we don't struggle with processor power but we do use up memory .. each db averages 100 - 150 concurrent sessions, max-ing at over 250. Our budget is small (!) .. but it would be nice to have some sort of redundancy. Should I be clustering .. virtually or otherwise ...? Any info gratefully received .. cheers, Rosemary

"R Rhodes" <rosie@bullysoft.co.uk> wrote in message news:299485d5-551f-48a9-bb5d-edcd02a0d3c7@x35g2000hsb.googlegroups.com... > Hi all, > I am looking for advice on what servers to buy to replace our existing > informix db servers. > We have to replace them, because they are dinosaurs and could pack up > at any moment. > Unfortunately I don't really have any idea what would be good to get > as I've never been involved in buying hardware before. So I'd be > grateful for any advice / recommendations / even names of good > knowledgable suppliers in the UK ! > We currently run Informix 9.21 on Solaris - but - are considering a > switch to Linux and an upgrade to Informix 11 . (have downloaded the > developer edition to test on Centos5) > > This is what we have currently : > 3 separate production db's ( all small - under 30 GB ) on separate sun > Solaris servers - > 2 E450's : 4 sparc processors 400MHz ; 2GB ram > 1 E4500 : 8 processors (same 400 MHz) ; 8GB ram > > The dbs serve web applications; we don't struggle with processor power > but we do use up memory .. each db averages 100 - 150 concurrent > sessions, max-ing at over 250. > Our budget is small (!) .. but it would be nice to have some sort of > redundancy. Should I be clustering .. virtually or otherwise ...? > Any info gratefully received .. > cheers, > Rosemary Gosh! Where do we start? First of all then, do you hold licences and current maintenance for the Informix software you have? If not, you'll have to reinstate the maintenance in order to get entitlement to upgrade to v11 (a reputable IBM Business Partner such as my own, or Paul Watson's Oninit, would be able to help you with this). If you *do* have current maintenance, the number of licences you hold may determine your hardware strategy to some extent. If you move to Linux you'll have no binary migration path, as Informix-on-Solaris is not binary-compatible with Informix-on-Linux. You'll have to do an ASCII dbexport/dbimport. If your databases are modest in size this may be easier; anything north of a few Gig and you'll likely have substantial downtime whilst migrating. Depending on your business this might be acceptable, but if you work for the 999 Ambulance Service it might not ... ;-) Clustering with Informix, which doesn't yet have (I sense I'm going to be corrected here!) "RAC" cluster technology except in the very newest releases would probably imply a shared-storage cluster, which in turn implies a SAN. You don't say anything about storage in the existing environment but I doubt if you could even fit an adaptor to an E450 so I assume they use internal disk. An alternative to clustering is the use of Informix High-Availability Data Replication, which uses Informix functionality and IP to keep a copy of your database on a separate server. However to comment on the relative merits of this over physical clustering would require detailed knowledge of the Informix licences you hold, as this will fundamentally affect the cost. In most respects I'd be tempted to look at a Sun Coolthreads server. You could then stay on Solaris which would simplify your migration path. These are modestly priced, and Solaris is OpenSource now, so you could put together a decent system for sensible money. But Sun Cluster is expensive, and if you've set your heart on clustering, RedHat Cluster is far, far cheaper, but you'd need to move away from Sparc processors and to Intel.

R Rhodes wrote: > Hi all, > I am looking for advice on what servers to buy to replace our existing > informix db servers. > We have to replace them, because they are dinosaurs and could pack up > at any moment. > Unfortunately I don't really have any idea what would be good to get > as I've never been involved in buying hardware before. So I'd be > grateful for any advice / recommendations / even names of good > knowledgable suppliers in the UK ! > Where are you in the UK? > We currently run Informix 9.21 on Solaris - but - are considering a > switch to Linux and an upgrade to Informix 11 . (have downloaded the > developer edition to test on Centos5) > > This is what we have currently : > 3 separate production db's ( all small - under 30 GB ) on separate sun > Solaris servers - > 2 E450's : 4 sparc processors 400MHz ; 2GB ram > 1 E4500 : 8 processors (same 400 MHz) ; 8GB ram > > The dbs serve web applications; we don't struggle with processor power > but we do use up memory .. each db averages 100 - 150 concurrent > sessions, max-ing at over 250. > Our budget is small (!) .. but it would be nice to have some sort of > redundancy. Should I be clustering .. virtually or otherwise ...? > By the sounds of it, you could easily run the entire party on a decent quad CPU Linux box. 4xdual core Xeons, about 8-12GB RAM. Hopefully, you could afford two of those and run HDR? HDR is cheap if you don't use the secondary for anything but being a secondary, but becomes dear if you do. -- Cheers, Obnoxio the Clown http://obotheclown.blogspot.com

"Obnoxio The Clown" <obnoxio@serendipita.com> wrote in message news:mailman.1510.1218799253.20610.informix-list@iiug.org... >R Rhodes wrote: >> Hi all, >> I am looking for advice on what servers to buy to replace our existing >> informix db servers. >> We have to replace them, because they are dinosaurs and could pack up >> at any moment. >> Unfortunately I don't really have any idea what would be good to get >> as I've never been involved in buying hardware before. So I'd be >> grateful for any advice / recommendations / even names of good >> knowledgable suppliers in the UK ! >> > Where are you in the UK? > >> We currently run Informix 9.21 on Solaris - but - are considering a >> switch to Linux and an upgrade to Informix 11 . (have downloaded the >> developer edition to test on Centos5) >> >> This is what we have currently : >> 3 separate production db's ( all small - under 30 GB ) on separate sun >> Solaris servers - >> 2 E450's : 4 sparc processors 400MHz ; 2GB ram >> 1 E4500 : 8 processors (same 400 MHz) ; 8GB ram >> >> The dbs serve web applications; we don't struggle with processor power >> but we do use up memory .. each db averages 100 - 150 concurrent >> sessions, max-ing at over 250. >> Our budget is small (!) .. but it would be nice to have some sort of >> redundancy. Should I be clustering .. virtually or otherwise ...? >> > > By the sounds of it, you could easily run the entire party on a decent > quad CPU Linux box. 4xdual core Xeons, about 8-12GB RAM. Preferably 8g. if you need to buy IDS licences a 4 dual-core x86 server would cost about '30k to licence, without HDR. Exactly the same server with 12g of memory would cost '140k. As before, I'd still look at Sun Sparc rather than Intel, due to the ease of upgrade.

Neil Truby wrote: > "Obnoxio The Clown" <obnoxio@serendipita.com> wrote in message > news:mailman.1510.1218799253.20610.informix-list@iiug.org... > >> R Rhodes wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> I am looking for advice on what servers to buy to replace our existing >>> informix db servers. >>> We have to replace them, because they are dinosaurs and could pack up >>> at any moment. >>> Unfortunately I don't really have any idea what would be good to get >>> as I've never been involved in buying hardware before. So I'd be >>> grateful for any advice / recommendations / even names of good >>> knowledgable suppliers in the UK ! >>> >>> >> Where are you in the UK? >> >> >>> We currently run Informix 9.21 on Solaris - but - are considering a >>> switch to Linux and an upgrade to Informix 11 . (have downloaded the >>> developer edition to test on Centos5) >>> >>> This is what we have currently : >>> 3 separate production db's ( all small - under 30 GB ) on separate sun >>> Solaris servers - >>> 2 E450's : 4 sparc processors 400MHz ; 2GB ram >>> 1 E4500 : 8 processors (same 400 MHz) ; 8GB ram >>> >>> The dbs serve web applications; we don't struggle with processor power >>> but we do use up memory .. each db averages 100 - 150 concurrent >>> sessions, max-ing at over 250. >>> Our budget is small (!) .. but it would be nice to have some sort of >>> redundancy. Should I be clustering .. virtually or otherwise ...? >>> >>> >> By the sounds of it, you could easily run the entire party on a decent >> quad CPU Linux box. 4xdual core Xeons, about 8-12GB RAM. >> > > Preferably 8g. if you need to buy IDS licences a 4 dual-core x86 server > would cost about £30k to licence, without HDR. Exactly the same server with > 12g of memory would cost £140k. > As before, I'd still look at Sun Sparc rather than Intel, due to the ease of > upgrade. > > Unless the databases are enormous, I'd contend that the effort required to do a hardware migration will not be a significant factor: you already have to move database version, OS version, move all the data elsewhere.... But then, I'm not really likely to be doing the actual work, am I? :o) -- Cheers, Obnoxio the Clown http://obotheclown.blogspot.com

"Obnoxio The Clown" <obnoxio@serendipita.com> wrote in message news:mailman.1511.1218802863.20610.informix-list@iiug.org... >> Unless the databases are enormous, I'd contend that the effort required to do a hardware migration will not be a significant factor: you already have to move database version, OS version, move all the data elsewhere.... If she sticks to Solaris she can migrate the data with ontape, which will be by far the quickest. If minimising downtime is paramount HDR could be used to aid this. >> But then, I'm not really likely to be doing the actual work, am I? :o) Me neither, I don't suppose!