[Bug-gnupedia] Architecture Questions

[Bob Dodd]

I was wondering, has much been done to consider database sizing issues
and/or response times? I hope *something* has… 

Assuming we are aiming for an encyclopedia of such breadth/depth that
Britannica will pale into insignificance, this really is something we
need to consider before leaping to any architecture decisions, let
alone choosing particular database products to support us.

So, my first questions are:

1) Where will our master database live? I'm assuming GNU servers… But
if our encyclopedia takes off, will GNU survive, or will so many
"normal" users (as opposed to the limited number of developers who use
it regularly)  querying the encyclopedia look start to like a denial of
service attack? :-)) How many hits can it really take? Will we be
limited to a maximum throughput rate, after which we must
reject/redirect queries?

2) What quantity of data can we put on this "master" server before the
owners start knocking on our door and asking for their disk back
please?

3) What kind of update rates are we expecting on our "core" data? I
know it can only be an informed guess, but our sizing work has to start
somewhere... And ina similar vein, what hit rate are we guessing at?

4) How much processor load are we allowed for handling the database
queries? Is there a limit to the number of concurrent threads etc?

5) What web server will we be sitting behind? Apache I assume... What
feature of that server are we allowed to use? Is there a requiremet to
maximise client-side work?

/Bob Dodd


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