Fwd: [Koha] Which OS?

[Joe Atzberger]

From: Joe Atzberger <ohiocore at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 23, 2007 4:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Koha] Which OS?
To: "Joshua M. Ferraro" <jmf at liblime.com>

If you are building a mission critical server, I don't think the mac mini
would be a prime choice, regardless of whether koha "runs fast" on it.  The
mini is a cool desktop, workstation or auxiliary server, but it isn't
designed to fill a mission critical role.  I'm using Apple's spec page as
reference:
      http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

Just as all living things must die, even the best servers will eventually
have parts fail.  So one big question is "What happens when a failure
occurs?"  Good server design offers several features that prevent you from
being utterly screwed just because one fan or drive failed.  These features
are notable in the mini's case, by their absence.

Mini's Major Downsides:
~ not site-serviceable:
     (1) You do not have guaranteed access to parts;
     (2) Unlike, say, the G4 chassis, Mini is not really designed for
serviceability;
~ drive performance: 2.5-inch 5400 (not even 7200) rpm HDD!
~ drive reliability: no hardware RAID.
~ no redundant power supplies.
~ Looks small, but takes 2U in a rack.

A second question is "How likely is a serious failure?"  The miniaturized
environment means more heat, increasing the wear on and failure rate of
moving parts, in particular hard drives and power supplies.  So failure is
more likely, and sooner.  Without redundancy or self-serviceability, when
failure does occur, you don't have a fallback.  Apple may decide that the
only thing to do is have you ship it back to them to service it.  And that
does not involve getting koha and your data back together.

Even if Apple will send a tech, what is the turnaround time on your
AppleCare service calls now?  What kind of turnaround are they obligated to
provide?  Unspecified.  Basic AppleCare doesn't really have SLA-style
assurances that govern the details of their service to you.  Compare this to
the industry standard "4 Hour Response, Next Day Parts" provisions of
AppleCare "Premium" for Xserve.  So it is clear by their support provisions
what hardware Apple regards as server-grade.  During a Mac Mini's
unspecified service period downtime, your library would have to operate ad
hoc (note: offline circulation *is* being developed for koha, but is not
bankable yet), while you endure considerable pressure... yet may not be able
to affect the outcome.  This is what I mean as being "utterly screwed."

I agree with Josh's preference for Debian.  At worst, it won't cost you
anything to try it.
--joe


On 10/18/07, Joshua M. Ferraro <jmf at liblime.com> wrote:
>
> ----- "ils shopping" <ils.shopping at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see directions for running Koha on Debian, Ubuntu, MacOSX, and
> > Windows.  Which is best?  I'm really a mac head and love the form
> > factor of the Mac Mini.  Would a 2ghz dual core mini with 2GB of ram
> > be sufficient to handle 50k of patrons, 120k of materials, and 500K
> > of circ for 1 facility?  Thats our current load.
> Well, it'll work on all of the above, running any operating system.
> I've always found it's easiest on Debian, but that's just my bias :-)
>
> The specs you quote will be fine if you're planning to roll out on
> the 3.0 codebase, but I wouldn't want to run 2.2 on those specs.
> Without Zebra your searching will be pretty slow on 2.2 ... searching
> is definitely the bottleneck to consider. But 3.0 will literally fly
> something like a Mac Mini :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Joshua Ferraro                       SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
> President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
> LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
> jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS
>
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