Cluster hardware advice

[Brian Moon]

We are going to start using cluster for some applications at dealnews. I am hoping that some folks that have experience with it can give me some advice.

Our plan is to have 4+ storage nodes that will only run the ndbd daemon. We will also have 2+ nodes running mysqld. Those nodes will only be used for reading from the cluster. Other servers will be updating the cluster. No local tables will exist on the sql nodes themselves. So, my question is, what configuration of hardware do I need for the storage nodes and sql nodes? I know I need lots of ram for the storage nodes. We are still trying to figure out exactly how much for those. Some questions I have a hard time answering in my testing is how much CPU will the ndbd daemon need? How much of the memory will need to be saved for the system? For the sql nodes, are they going to be cpu bound? how much ram will be needed on them? is sorting done at all on them or is that all done on the ndbd servers?

I can run tests and benchmarks, but that can never compare to real world experience. Anyone out there than can give me advice on this? Lets assume we have 100 concurrent connections per sql server. The queries will all be highly optimized key lookups.

Thanks,

Brian Moon
Phorum Dev Team
http://phorum.org/
-----------------------
dealnews.com - How to go broke saving money.
http://dealnews.com/