HAProxy Hardware LB

2012-05-02 Thread Sebastian Fohler

Hi,

I'm trying to build a small size loadbalancing maschine which fit's into 
a small 19" rackmountable case.
Are there any experiences which some specific hardware, for example ATOM 
boards or something similiar?

Can someone recomment anything special?

Best regards
Sebastian



Re: HAProxy Hardware LB

2012-05-07 Thread Willy Tarreau
Hi Sebastian,

On Wed, May 02, 2012 at 01:07:20PM +0200, Sebastian Fohler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to build a small size loadbalancing maschine which fit's into 
> a small 19" rackmountable case.
> Are there any experiences which some specific hardware, for example ATOM 
> boards or something similiar?
> Can someone recomment anything special?

I'm well placed to say it's quite hard to find nice hardware for this. There
are two important points to consider :
  - the number of NICs
  - the type of NICs

The number of NICs depends on what you want to do. Two NICs are not that hard
to find, but more become complex and remove a lot of choice.

The type of NIC is very important too. Atoms are very commonly sold with
Realtek chips which are the lowest quality you will ever find. Not only
the CPU usage will remain high at moderate traffic rates, but you'll surely
experience those annoying lockups at high rates that you don't want to
experiment in a LB.

Now depending on the amount of processing power you need, ALIX boards from
PC Engines might be excellent. They're running on a 500 MHz Geode, are totally
fanless (and even without a heatsink), but are limited to 10/100 interfaces
and 256 MB of RAM. There are some nice Atom boards at Commell but they come
with a fan and need some airflow to keep cool. And they're not necessarily
cheap depending on your budget.

Hoping this helps,
Willy




Re: HAProxy Hardware LB

2012-05-08 Thread Timh Bergström
Hi,

I would highly recommend Supermicro's Atom-boxes, they do have
Intel-chips (dual-gig) on-board in their mini-19" servers (if you find
the right one). You can use a SSD-drive and you're down to very few
moving parts.

Link: http://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/atom.cfm

Good luck!

Timh Bergström
www.quickvz.com



On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Sebastian Fohler  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to build a small size loadbalancing maschine which fit's into a
> small 19" rackmountable case.
> Are there any experiences which some specific hardware, for example ATOM
> boards or something similiar?
> Can someone recomment anything special?
>
> Best regards
> Sebastian
>



Re: HAProxy Hardware LB

2012-05-08 Thread Malcolm Turnbull
Hi,

I'd agree with that choice, they don't look very pretty but we have
found them very reliable especially with Intel SSDs:
We have a good 500+ Loadbalancer.org customers are on that platform:
http://uk.loadbalancer.org/r16.php







On 8 May 2012 09:21, Timh Bergström  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would highly recommend Supermicro's Atom-boxes, they do have
> Intel-chips (dual-gig) on-board in their mini-19" servers (if you find
> the right one). You can use a SSD-drive and you're down to very few
> moving parts.
>
> Link: http://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/atom.cfm
>
> Good luck!
>
> Timh Bergström
> www.quickvz.com
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Sebastian Fohler  wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm trying to build a small size loadbalancing maschine which fit's into a
>> small 19" rackmountable case.
>> Are there any experiences which some specific hardware, for example ATOM
>> boards or something similiar?
>> Can someone recomment anything special?
>>
>> Best regards
>> Sebastian
>>
>



-- 
Regards,

Malcolm Turnbull.

Loadbalancer.org Ltd.
Phone: +44 (0)870 443 8779
http://www.loadbalancer.org/