The document discusses key concepts in server configuration, including the implications of single points of failure, round-robin scheduling, and the importance of caching for performance. It highlights the benefits of database caching and configurations for various operating systems, including recommendations for server setup based on available RAM. The article concludes with a note on the challenges of maintaining system packages and the use of external repositories for updates.

1. SERVE LIKE A BOSS (PART ONE)
SOME CONCEPTS AND AN INTRODUCTION TO SERVER CONFIGURATION
27 Aug 2015
Hamed Nemati

2. SPOF (SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE)
• Hardware/Software interface
• It’s failure will cause whole
system fail

3. ROUND-ROBIN SCHEDULING
• No priority
• Simple
• Starvation-free
Usage:
• Process and network scheduler
• data packet scheduling
“Each person takes an equal share of something in turn”

4. CACHE EVERYWHERE!
When:
• Response time counts
• Accessing multiple times
(Heavy reads, light writes)
“Ram is the new disk”

5. CACHE EVERYWHERE!
Cache hit occurs when the
requested data can be found in
a cache, while a cache miss
occurs when it cannot.

6. BOTTLENECK
A bottleneck occurs when the
capacity of an application or a
computer system is severely
limited by a single component.
• Processor
• Communication link
• Disk IO

7. DATABASE CACHING
• Performance
• Availability: by continued service for applications that depend
only on cached tables even if the backend server is unavailable.
• Scalability
• Flexibility

8. TWO CACHING SOFTWARE
• Key / Value
• Up to 512MiB per Key
• Support data types
• Not only a cache mechanism
• Can perform persistence
• Simple Key / Value [String]
• Up to 1MiB per Key
• Faster than Redis
• Non-persistence
Use case:
User sessions caching
Use case:
Database caching

9. A SIMPLE REAL LIFE WEB ARCHITECTURE
User
Request
Web
Server
Web App
Database Cache ( Memcached )
Database ( MySql )
Server
Sessions
Cache
(Redis)

10. CONFIGURING A WEB SERVER

11. OPERATING SYSTEM
• Use Ubuntu when you have
more ram (otherwise CentOS fit
better)
• Use 32bit when you have less
ram
• Most of the time newer versions
of the OS require more initial
ram
• Always try to install packages
from OS repositories:
• Easy to update
• More stable and reliable
• More compatible with other apps

12. OPERATING SYSTEM CHALLENGES
• Configuring different distributions are different
• Configuring a 32bit OS may differ by it’s 64bit version
• Configuring different versions of a same distribution may differ

13. OPERATING SYSTEM CHALLENGES
Challenge: Distribution support
has finished and packages are
not maintained any more, so
you can not find a package or
the package is out dated
Solution: Use an external
repository to get the latest [or
your preferred] version of the
package (Like Remi and EPEL
for CentOS).

14. - Dedicated to my friends in NIGS
TO BE CONTINUED…

15. HAMED NEMATI
• hamed@atbox.io
• @hamednz
• New Idea Game Studio