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Help Slashdot Test Our New Data Center

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the it-seems-like-only-yesterday dept.

After many years of living in California, Slashdot is preparing to move to a new data center in Chicago, and we need your help. We have our new site running a dump of our database from a few days ago. You can hit it at beta.slashdot.org. Please go there, post comments, submit stories, and do whatever you do normally. Or maybe abnormally — run crawlers, write poll spamming robots or something. If you find any crazy issues, please submit them to our sourceforge tracker. If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM.

17 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Tracerouted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    3 fewer hops to 11, latency tripled to 85ms

    1. Re:Tracerouted by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      5 fewer for me, about 2/3 latency.

      --
      Unpleasantries.
  2. Power consumption? by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM.

    What's the power consumption on this set up?

    1. Re:Power consumption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The SAN will blow away the power consumption of the CPUs in any moderately sized setup. I wonder how many discs are in the Slashdot SAN?

    2. Re:Power consumption? by zdzichu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is /.. If there were 2.33 chips they would write 2.33. 2.3 GHz clearly show it's Barcelona Opteron. They've TDP of 137W (or 74W in case of High Efficiency chips).

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      :wq
  3. More info about the hardware? by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AMD or INTEL?

    What is the raid setup?

    Hardware raid? raid 5? raid 6? raid 50? others?

    SAS? scsi?

    MB chipset?

    How are they linked to each other Dual or more teamed gig-e

    10 gig-e?

    others?

  4. What is the current hardware? by llZENll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Your FAQ is from 2000 http://slashdot.org/faq/tech.shtml#te050

    1. Re:What is the current hardware? by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 3, Interesting
      http://meta.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/18/1641203

      Slashdot currently has 16 web servers all of which are running Red Hat 9. Two serve static content: javascript, images, and the front page for non logged-in users. Four serve the front page to logged in users. And the remaining ten handle comment pages. All web servers are Rackable 1U servers with 2 Xeon 2.66Ghz processors, 2GB of RAM, and 2x80GB IDE hard drives. The web servers all NFS mount the NFS server, which is a Rackable 2U with 2 Xeon 2.4Ghz processors, 2GB of RAM, and 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI drives. (CT: Just as a note, we frequently shuffle these 16 servers from one task to another to handle changes in load or performance. Next week's software story will explain in much more detail exactly what we do with those machines. Also as a note- the NFS is read-only, which was really the only safe way to use NFS around 1999 when we started doing it this way.)

      Besides the 16 web servers, we have 7 databases. They currently are all running CentOS 4. They breakdown as follows: 2 Dual Opteron 270's with 16GB RAM, 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI Drives These are doing multiple-master replication, with one acting as Slashdot's single write-only DB, and the other acting as a reader. We have the ability to swap their functions dynamically at any time, providing an acceptable level of failover.

      2 Dual Opteron 270's with 8GB RAM, 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI Drives These are Slashdot's reader DBs. Each derives data from a specific master database (listed above). The idea is that we can add more reader databases as we need to scale. These boxes are barely a year old now -- and still are plenty fast for our needs.

      Lastly, we have 3 Quad P3 Xeon 700Mhz with 4GB RAM, 8x36GB 10K RPM SCSI Drives which are sort of our miscellaneous 'other' boxes. They are used to host our accesslog writer, an accesslog reader, and Slashdot's search database. We need this much for accesslogs because moderation and stats require a lot of CPU time for computation.
      --
      Unpleasantries.
  5. Ah, the Data Center robbery center of America! by snarfies · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How soon we forget.

    http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/03/2054208

    WISE choice, Slashdot. Wise choice.

  6. great choice by ILuvRamen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nobody should have any sort of datacenter in CA cuz it's too hot and the power to cool it is too expensive. Chicago was a far better choice! Plus it's closer to Wisconsin where I live so the response time will be better. That's even more important ;)

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  7. Re:Obligitory by krgallagher · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "But does it run linux?"

    I know that was meant to be a joke, but that is my question. What is the OS? What is the Database engine? What is the web server? Are you using a load balancer? Details! I want details!

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    Insert Generic Sig Here:

  8. Tempus Interruptus! by FurtiveGlancer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please, kill the 2-minute comment delay timer on beta.slashdot. We really want to test it!

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    Invenio via vel creo
  9. Pictures? by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some pictures of the new setup would be great.

    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
  10. It's all about the Pizza, isn't it? by Spinlock_1977 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Been to California (4 weeks), New York (7 years), and Chicago (2 weeks). The pizza in California sux. NYC is better, but I think Chicago gets the nod. Good move Slashdot!

    --
    - The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
  11. Can't log in using Opera by RobertB-DC · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't log in to the new site using Opera. IE works just fine. But with Opera, the system returns me to the screen it should, but not logged in. The login doesn't work in any access technique -- main page, sidebar, even the Ajax-y popup thing.

    It's validating, because if I use invalid data, I get "Danger Will Robinson!" But if I use my actual login/pwd, it silently fails.

    I'm not about to create a Sourceforge account just for this, though... I suspect they'll find enough bugs without my direct help.

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  12. Comcast Routes are Screwy by slifox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I live just south of the loop (downtown Chicago). Using Comcast cable, I get routed to Boston, back to Chicago, then to New York, then back to Elk Grove (near Chicago)!

    Comcast from a suburb just north of Chicago does nearly the same thing:
        Chicago, to Chartford CT, back to Chicago, to New York Savvis, then to Elk Grove, and finally to beta.slashdot.org.

    That doesn't make a whole lot of sense... Who the hell setup Comcast's routing??

    For comparison, on the Illinois Century Network (an Internet2-capable ISP for many universities and research labs), I get routed through Chicago Cogentco, then right to Chicago Savvis, and finally to beta.slashdot.org

    Can anyone explain Comcast's weird routes?

  13. IPv6 please by ptudor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can you please start listening on a v6 address?