Sizing a server

[Jonathan Petersson]

I would say that your load isn't terribly high, any new server would 
probably do the trick. I'm not sure how the SMP support is handled in 
BIND but overall 1 core is good enough.

(At work we've an old P3 700MHz 128MB RAM serving 2000+ queries/second 
and we've never had any issues with that not being enough)

John Wobus wrote:
> Any comments about good hardware/OS for running BIND9 these days?
>
> I have the opportunity to provide input regarding server models and OS 
> to use to replace our
> production DNS servers.  Current load:
>
> Queries:    800/second is typical during prime time of a typical day.
> Current process size:   258M
> Serves as caching server for 20,000 or so end users
>
> Authoritative for:
> around 300 zones
> around 300,000 records in zone files
>
> Currently we run on Solaris 9 Sun-Fire-V240s, 2 processors (each 1 
> GHz), and the only real
> issue I've seen in the life of these servers is an indication of some 
> dropped packets, a problem that
> went away when we increased udp_recv_hiwat.  Thus, the issue I'm most 
> sensitized to at
> the moment is to best assure the server will not drop packets over 
> their lifetime,
> which I assume will include a bit of usage growth.
>
> Our site's "mainstream" server choices would be small Sparc Sun with 
> Solaris 9 or 10,
> or small IBM X-series servers with RedHat AS 4.0 (with plans to 
> upgrade).  I assume that any
> of these would do a reasonable job, but I'd love to hear any evidence 
> to the contrary, or any
> strong performance reasons to look elsewhere.
>
> I read recently here on the bind-users list that if you use threads 
> with BIND9, that 2-4 processors is
> the "sweet spot".  That tidbit is welcome information (thanks!), and 
> any more relevant experiences
> folks have would be welcome as well.
>
> John Wobus
> Cornell CIT
>
>
>