[COLUG] Centos version questions, and a few others..

[Tom Hanlon]

On 20 Jan 2008, at 20:54, Duane wrote:

> Tom Hanlon wrote:
>
>> I assume that  (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-9))
>> implies that I am running the CentOS version that is equivalent to
>> RHEL3.4 .
>> Is that assumption correct ?
>
> That's not the CentOS version, that's the version of gcc that compiled
> the kernel.

Well then, how do I get the CentOS version that I am running ? I  
thought Redhat had a /etc/redhat-release file. i will look for that.

[web at main ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 4.6 (Final)


>
>> I will be installing and exploring memcached, does anyone have any  
>> experiences that they would like to share ?
>
> What do you want to know about it, and more to the point what do you
> actually want to do as there may be other solutions you haven't  
> thought
> of that may be better.
>
> For example, I started out using memcached on a project more as a play
> around with it then anything serious and I ended up just using shared
> memory since it's less points of failure and what not.

I might need to know as much as I can. I might write a brief course  
that introduces memcache, I might need to teach and advise folks in  
the use of memcache. In particular the piece that matters to me is  
website performance optimization by using memcache. I assume that  
means using memcache to alleviate Database queries by serializing  
session and user information into memcache rather than hitting the  
Database for it. Most likely I will need to know about memcache and  
it's place in high performance web site architectures.

It came up as a topic and subject that is possibly in my future  
career path. It looks like something rather basic and  
straightforward, (I love that kind of stuff) yet with really cool  
implications. So I am taking some free time to explore it.

I am curious about your project and your use of shared mem and what  
the weaknesses of memcached.  You looked into memcache at the early  
phases of a project and were still coding so you were able to utilize  
shared mem at that time ? It was simpler to keep everything in one  
place , the application?  I assume I will be looking at clusters of  
machines handling web requests so shared mem on one machine might not  
be a solution. Websites tend to scale out onto multiple machines and  
most of the tools , apache, mysql, php, allow for that. Memcached  
seems to have a place in that environment.

Still i would like to hear what your programming language was and  
what your application was and if you did any performance benchmarks  
or other tests ?

It seems like much of the "smarts" of using  memcached is handled by  
the libraries in the applications. I will start with PHP but if Perl  
or Ruby or something is better, please let me know.


>
>> I intended to build my box and perhaps rent rackspace from one of  
>> the list members, due to a lack of time, just leasing a self  
>> managed box made the best short term solution when I faced an  
>> emergency with my previous machine.
>
> The other option is a virtual server, I found out about serveraxis  
> from
> this list, and while they've put their prices up for new hostings they
> still offer best bang for buck imho, and it's a lot more economical  
> then
> having to rent an entire server etc.

I know, for some superstitious reason I so far have stayed away from  
virtualized machines. Besides it is too late, I needed to move fast.  
I might migrate once I get through this switch, but I have a free  
week, and a troubled box, so I made the move. My main goal was speed.  
Better options might have been and might still be available, but I  
had to get things ready so I can secure and migrate in the next few  
days.

Thanks Duane !!

--
Tom


>
> -- 
>
> Best regards,
>  Duane
>
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