Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
37signals.com
Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#2Yikes. I see Isilon and I think someone just spent 500k where they could have spent 75k and used MogileFS or similar. I suppose 37 signal's profit margins are good enough that it doesn't matter, but I'm glad it's not my money.
Moving to their own servers makes sense though. No doubt that's going to save them over paying a huge premiuim for Rackspace. With three full-time people it's a good move.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#3Yikes. I see Isilon and I think someone just spent 500k where they could have spent 75k and used MogileFS or similar. I suppose 37 signal's profit margins are good enough that it doesn't matter, but I'm glad it's not my money. Moving to their own servers makes sense though. No doubt that's going to save them over paying a huge premiuim for Rackspace. With three full-time people it's a good move.
If you had tens of thousands of customers, would you bet your company on a homebrew MogileFS setup? And are you sure you'd save enough money to justify a port?
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#4Yikes. I see Isilon and I think someone just spent 500k where they could have spent 75k and used MogileFS or similar. I suppose 37 signal's profit margins are good enough that it doesn't matter, but I'm glad it's not my money. Moving to their own servers makes sense though. No doubt that's going to save them over paying a huge premiuim for Rackspace. With three full-time people it's a good move.
If you had tens of thousands of customers, would you bet your company on a homebrew MogileFS setup? And are you sure you'd save enough money to justify a port?
Yes. I'm confident in my abilities to overcome absolutely any problem that might occur. For the same reasons I choose Linux and open source solutions over Windows or other proprietary solutions: there's always a way out. Isilon, Cisco, or Oracle only provide the illusion of certainty.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#5tldr: they moved from rackspace to their own colocated servers at someone else's datacenter, they didn't build a new datacenter. not sure why anyone would really care about this...
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you had tens of thousands of customers, would you bet your company on a homebrew MogileFS setup? And are you sure you'd save enough money to justify a port?
Yes. I'm confident in my abilities to overcome absolutely any problem that might occur. For the same reasons I choose Linux and open source solutions over Windows or other proprietary solutions: there's always a way out. Isilon, Cisco, or Oracle only provide the illusion of certainty.
Your confidence in your abilities provide only an illusion of certainty. Maybe if you had enough time you could fix any problems that occur with open source software, but when you have a deadline it's nice to have experts to help you. You can find open source experts, but with a commercially supported product there is a much clearer chain of responsibility.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#7tldr: they moved from rackspace to their own colocated servers at someone else's datacenter, they didn't build a new datacenter. not sure why anyone would really care about this...
It do interested me tought, especially how they designed their hardware architecture to match their need. Their apps is quite different from other web startup, I think each user got his/her own DB instance. We all heard stories how facebook or twitter which data is stored in one huge DB scale. I'd like to know how 37signals did it and looking forward to their next article.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I'm confident in my abilities to overcome absolutely any problem that might occur. For the same reasons I choose Linux and open source solutions over Windows or other proprietary solutions: there's always a way out. Isilon, Cisco, or Oracle only provide the illusion of certainty.
Your confidence in your abilities provide only an illusion of certainty. Maybe if you had enough time you could fix any problems that occur with open source software, but when you have a deadline it's nice to have experts to help you. You can find open source experts, but with a commercially supported product there is a much clearer chain of responsibility.
Experts? You mean the $10/hr guys 5k miles away that support Microsoft, Oracle, or NetApp products?
Responsibility is meaningless. Competence is what matters.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your confidence in your abilities provide only an illusion of certainty. Maybe if you had enough time you could fix any problems that occur with open source software, but when you have a deadline it's nice to have experts to help you. You can find open source experts, but with a commercially supported product there is a much clearer chain of responsibility.
Experts? You mean the $10/hr guys 5k miles away that support Microsoft, Oracle, or NetApp products? Responsibility is meaningless. Competence is what matters.
While I support your argument, you have to be careful it doesn't turn into arrogance.
I remember one time being promised by the tech lead on a project that an inexpensive networking solution would be just as good as the expensive kit we had used for development. Turns out he couldn't make it work - the cheap kit just wasn't as good as the expensive stuff we had developed against.
However, I was the one standing in the customer's office being shouted at by three of their unhappy managers as their time critical project was delayed until we got the proper kit ordered and the tech lead sulked back at our office.
Sometimes expensive kit is worth it.
Re: Nuts & Bolts: New Datacenter
#10Yikes. I see Isilon and I think someone just spent 500k where they could have spent 75k and used MogileFS or similar. I suppose 37 signal's profit margins are good enough that it doesn't matter, but I'm glad it's not my money. Moving to their own servers makes sense though. No doubt that's going to save them over paying a huge premiuim for Rackspace. With three full-time people it's a good move.
They were using MogileFS, perhaps they outgrew it: http://groups.google.com/group/mogile/browse_thread/thread/a...
Do some research before you shit on some technical decision.