We are going to build a Large Enterprise Cloud Solution and would like to know in which configuration we would have a better redundancy/performance and cost efficient.
Here are 2 examples which we're considering as good configurations to grow.
Main Hardware:
- 42U Rack
- 2x Dell Force10 S4810
- 2x HP P2000 iSCSi (2x AW595A Controller), 12x 600GB SAS (RAID10)
Example 1 for a configuration with many small nodes:
- 36x HP DL120 G7 (Xeon® E3-1240 @ 3.30GHz), 32GB RAM, 2x10GE, 2x240GB SSD (RAID1)
Example 2 for a configuration with fewer, bigger nodes:
- 18x HP DL380p G8 (2 x Xeon® E5-2640 @ 2.5GHz), 256GB RAM, 2x10GE/4x10GE, 2x240GB SSD (RAID1)
So the question is now, is it better to take 36x DL120 or 18x DL380?
Would the DL380 handle for example 40GE (2xNIC) or is that to much to handle for the server? Even if we would set up 40GE, is the RAM just too large for the DL120, or is the 32GB RAM not enough resources and won't be cost efficient because of the expensive switches and iSCSi devices?
How do other companies operate, like Rackspace, Amazon, Facebook, Google etc. (I mean they have a very large number of servers, I know, but for me the main strategy is what is important to know.)