1U Apache Servers - Sun or Intel?

odoa4 asks: "What do you think will make a better 1u Apache Server? A Sun Netra X1 or a 1U Ontel box such as a Dell PowerApp.Web 120 or a VA 1220. This is a difficult question because the Intel boxes are about $1800 a piece and the Sun machine is only $1000. The Sun machine can only use 1 CPU and it runs at 400Mhz, where the Intel machines run at 800+Mhz with up to 2 cpus. Keep in mind that the web servers will be clustered, so the real question isn't so much about whether the Intel boxes are faster, but more along the lines of are they worth the $800 more when I could almost get another Netra for the cost. As far as OSs go, I would use Solaris 8 on the Sun machines and FreeBSD on the Intel boxes. Here are some links to various servers I've looked at: Sun Netra X1, VALinux 1220, and the PowerApp.web 120" Are there other alternatives for 1U servers, that the submittor might do well to look into?

Comments

Breakdown Sun/Dell+VA

[selectspec]

I. Operating Systems. Well (here comes the flamebait), there are pluses and minus to Solaris vs. BSD or Linux. In these simple systems performance wont vary much between the OS's. However, Solaris is the more reliable OS (better NFS implementation, etc). As far as the OS goes, I'd have to say Solaris, except for the sun compiler which is a complete piece of sh*t and a pain in the ass if you are doing some custom C stuff. Ultimately, if it were me, I'd prefer to work with Solaris here, especially if your running a Java middle-teir (servlets).

II. CPU. What matters here is the usage, and my first question would be are you going to be doing SSL. If so, are you using an accelerator in front of the cluster? If you are using an accelerator, I would lean towards the UltraSPARC IIe. The SPARC wont perform SSL as fast as the Pentiums and the Pentiums frankly have better caching layouts than these lowend SPARCs. Without a SSL accelerator appliance, the Pentiums will considerably outperform almost 2:1 over the Ultra.

III. Maintenance. This is the tough one. If you have to replace one of the Sun ethernet cards or hard drives get out your checkbook (we are talking Sun here). The Intel configs will be cheaper to maintain.

IV. Hard Drives. Drives for these guys really are for caching and virtual memory since you are going with a cluster. The reality is that IDE is perfect for this use, since your net connections are going to be the primary choke points. And the Sun IDE drive is faster than the VA box drive. The Dell is SCSI which is probably not economical for most purposes.

V. Networking. The key here is that the Sun box only has room for one network card. So, if you need 2 cards, the answer is pretty simple. Both the dell and VA box have room for two. Also, if you want something other than base 10/100 ethernet, you aint gettin it with the Sun box.

VI. Other Drives. The Sun box doesnt have a CD drive, (which is fine considering its a cluster) or a floppy drive, and the others do. This is a nice cost saving measure if your clustering.

VII. Memory. Sun's memory bug is no longer around, so memory is pretty much even ground here. All of these guys come with 128 Megs on the lowend, which is probably too little depending on your purpose.

VIII. Service/Support. Dell has very good service and support. Sun has bad support, but they honor warranties. I've never used VA, but heck they own /. (hmmm).

Summary. I'm sure I'm missing stuff, but this is a start. If you are just serving up flat files, I dont think I'd go with the sun, but I dont think I'd go with either of your other choices. I'd probably go with the VA 1120, or the low-end dell. (or look at another vendor like pengiun, etc). If you are running app servers, then I'd fork based on what the medium is. Mod perl stuff probably lends better for non-solaris environments (I could be fudding now), but Java definetly runs better on Solaris (I wonder why?). For C/C++ stuff, the toss up is with your compiler choice. If you are using other open source stuff, you probably dont want to be using gcc on Solaris (flamebait alert!) for optimal performance, but you'll have a nightmare of compatibility issues if you use the sun compiler. If you're using third-party binaries, who cares.

Why sun vs. Dell?

[smoon]

IBM makes a nice looking 1U server that includes KVM functionality.

Compaq has one that uses the same hard drives as their other servers.

I have to agree with one of the earlier posts -- get one of each and test them. Intel/AMD/x86 chips have gotten awfully fast lately. Since the cheaper sun boxes usually use IDE and PCI, the main difference from the intel servers will be CPU, scsi vs. ide, and memory subsystem (cache amt, speed, ram amt & speed). The Sparc might make more sense if you're doing some 64 bit stuff, or using some feature that's better on sparc, e.g.: floating point.

Since the preceding seems fairly obvious, your question simplifies to: "Is solaris 8 on slower hardware better than *BSD on faster hardware?". That question is better answered by looking at your in-house solaris expertise, need to run commercial apps only available on solaris, etc.