[ic] Clustering

[Dan Browning]

At 10:04 AM 8/1/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I was wondering if anyone out there is running interchange in a clustered 
>environment?

Yes, but only two of which (Bill Carr and I) participate on the mailing list.

>I have a client that is interested in interchange but wish to be sure that 
>they can run clustered web from ends
>using Linux virtual server or RH advance server via Piranha.

I use Linux virtual server, as my evaluation of Piranha (at the time) 
didn't pass with flying colors (i.e. I tuned LVS by hand instead of via 
Piranha).

>They also wish to cluster the Mysql databases.

I haven't done this yet, but if I were going to, I would use DBI::Multiplex.

>If anyone out there has a cluster running I would be very interested in 
>the setup and any real world experience with this. I would like to be able 
>to show the client that there are other out there running interchange in a 
>cluster environment.

My experience with it has been great.  Instead of buying one $4,000 box, we 
just got two $2,000 boxes, set them up in the cluster, and forgot about 
it.  One thing people don't usually mention is that you can do an LVS with 
just two boxes and it works great.  I've had either box go down at various 
times because of software/hardware upgrades, accidents, etc.  Each time it 
happens I get a little e-mail on my cell phone (thanks mond) and then I 
promptly forget about it until it is convenient to fix, and users of the 
site don't notice either, since the sessions are stored in a 3rd server 
[SPOF, yes] so they can keep going with the same URL/session/cart.  The 
setup wasn't particularly hard, especially the Interchange part (I did get 
a small HOWTO started at http://www.icdevgroup.org/~danb/).

>Also would a https/http accelerator, such as Squid, in front of the 
>interchange front ends cause any session issues or any thing like that?

IC has the "mv_pc=..." thing to force dynamic pages to get through 3-rd 
party caches, but as I haven't used a proxy with IC before, I couldn't 
vouch for the functionality. Cheers,

+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Dan Browning, Kavod Technologies <db@kavod.com>
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
                 -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed