Watch 37signals talk about server infrastructure | Hacker News Reader

Watch 37signals talk about server infrastructure

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42 pointsjoshowens14 comments

From the summary:

  - 37signals has 40 servers, and a total of 125 OSes running.
  - 3 Server admins work at 37signals.

That is insteresting. Most orgs would consider that a pretty low ratio of servers/admin.

It's much easier to have a higher ratio when the absolute numbers are higher. Fewer than 2 admins means no vacations, and a team of 3 is often more comfortable.

I agree with rarrrrrr, having been the only admin or in a team of two, vacations can be tough. I would gladly work in a team of three if I had the choice.

I haven't watched the talk yet, but it's quite possible that having more sysadmins is what allows them to use 40 servers. One guy might have needed 80 servers to accomplish the same work because he's too busy to optimize anything. :)

They must be lumping internal IT tasks in with operations or else they have some competency issues that seem to call into question much of their other "brave new company" agitprop.

this guy must be the worst interviewer ever. sometimes, he seems to be so bored...

interesting insights, tho.

I really wasn't bored, just had a bad head cold. I have to get used to video too, I've always don't audio only.

"Yeahhh.... interesting..."

Bare metal servers showed a 15% increase using production traffic, over KVM.

KVM?

http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page

Basically the in-kernel virtual machine setup. It's starting to gain more acceptance.

http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page , not keyboard-video-mouse :)

That's an interesting data point to keep in mind. Because KVM is boasting better efficiency than Xen, and Xen boasts ~2% overhead. Well, that might be theory...

Virtualization overhead numbers are basically useless since they depend on hardware generation, virtualization mode, configuration, workload, etc. Unless you're running exactly the same configuration as 37s, your mileage will vary... a lot.

Thanks for pointing out the missing link for those not familiar. I updated the show notes.

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