SERVER SPECIFICATIONS FOR A ROBUST WEBSITE

The face of large e-commerce websites is deceptively simple. The friendly web pages of bookseller Amazon.com or PC retailer Dell Online (previously called Dell.com) hide the fact that huge, pulsating server farms with sophisticated load balancing and fault tolerance are quickly brokering the customers’ web clicks through a maze of database accesses, cached data, and network routes.

Deciding upon the server hardware to run your website will probably engender a hard fought battle among your entire technical team —designers, programmers, and IT staff. The final server hardware configuration will be based on a “best guess” in that no one will be able to reliably predict the data traffic load that the hardware will ultimately carry. Keep in mind that as your website grows your server configuration will need to adapt not only to your evolving business, but also to whatever new technology comes along.

In the server world there is a saying: “You can never have too much capacity.” In other words, the demand for disk space, memory, and available processing power seems to max out faster than anyone can predict. Web servers and other applications, such as database servers, can quickly expand beyond the limits of any single platform.

Server Needs

A suggested configuration for a robust website’s server includes a Dual Pentium III 933 MHz or better; 512 MB RAM or better; Dual SCSI (10,000 RPM) drives; and Raid 5 configuration.

NOTE
The Dell e-commerce site consists of 75-plus Dell PowerEdge servers, each with one or two processors and anywhere from 256 Mbps to 2 Gbps of RAM. Because anywhere from 3000 to 4000 simultaneous shoppers visit the online store during peak hours, Dell also crafted solutions that can maintain the state of customer transactions in the event of system failures.