When it comes to speeding up a server, the primary choice of most people is to add more hardware resources. This will certainly improve the performance, but will cost you fair amount of money. The fact is that you can improve the performance by tweaking the services. The basic principle is to identify the services consuming the most of the resources and change their settings to suit your server. You don’t have to be too much technical to optimise your server.

The web and database servers are the frequently used services in a server and they consume most of the resources. Apache and MySQL are the widely used web and database servers. This article focuses on altering the Apache and MySQL services to improve the performance. You need to have shell access with root privileges in the server to modify the configuration settings.

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The load average tries to measure the number of active processes at any time. High load averages usually mean that the system is being used heavily and the response time is correspondingly slow. The server load is influenced by memory usage, CPU usage, size of swap file etc.

The “number of cores = max load” Rule of Thumb: on a multicore system, your load should not exceed the number of cores available.

There are a few different ways to keep an eye on your servers load. We can monitor the load manually or using monitoring tools.

Monitoring Tools:

RRDtool (Round-Robin Database Tool)

RRDtool is the OpenSource industry standard, high performance data logging and graphing system for time series data. RRDtool can be easily integrated in shell scripts, perl, python, ruby, lua or tcl applications.The main features of RRD tool are Data Acquisition, Consolidation, Round Robin Archives, Graphing and Aberrant Behavior Detection. Nagios, Cacti, Ganglia etc uses RRDtool as a DBMS and/or graphing subsystem.

Nagios

Nagios is a powerful, enterprise-class host, service, application, and network monitoring program that enables organizations to identify and resolve IT infrastructure problems before they affect critical business processes. It designed to be fast, flexible, and rock-solid stable and can monitor Windows, Linux/Unix/BSD, Netware, and network devices.

Cacti

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool’s data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box.

Ganglia

Ganglia is a scalable distributed monitoring system for high-performance computing systems such as clusters and Grids. It is based on a hierarchical design targeted at federations of clusters. It leverages widely used technologies such as XML for data representation, XDR for compact, portable data transport, and RRDtool for data storage and visualization.

Monitorix

Monitorix is a free, open source, lightweight system monitoring tool designed to monitor as many services and system resourcesm as possible. It has been created to be used under production UNIX/Linux servers, but due to its simplicity and small size can be used on embedded devices as well.

MRTG(Multi Router Traffic Grapher)

The Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) is a tool to monitor the traffic load on network links. MRTG generates HTML pages containing PNG images which provide a LIVE visual representation of this traffic.

Munin

Munin is a simple to configure tool which makes graph about server status. It can actually deal with almost all aspect of server (load average, network cards status, CPU usage, memory usage, postfix, exim4, mysql etc.). It is designed to be very plug and play.

Zabbix

Zabbix is the ultimate open source availability and performance monitoring solution. Zabbix offers advanced monitoring, alerting, and visualization features.

http://www.xaprb.com/blog/how-to-monitor-server-load
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRDtool
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison

Manual monitoring:

For manual monitoring, first you need to do is login to server via SSH. Following are some of the helpful commands which can be used with proper options for monitoring load in server.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/top-linux-monitoring-tools
http://h30565.www3.hp.com/16-Linux-Server-Monitoring-Commands

If you notice your server slowing down, check the load first. Having an overloaded server can lead to many problems and should always be avoided.

The above is a very rough outline of Server load monitoring methods, if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

Blog written and edited by :

Nimi K M works as a Junior Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in April 2012. She loves reading books and listening music in her free time.

Virtual Private Servers are the primary choice of customers who can’t afford to buy a Dedicated Server, at the same time need same amount of flexibility and control. This industry is facing a serious threat from Amazon and Windows Azure Cloud Platforms. This article is focused on running a VPS business which can compete with these cloud platforms.

A thorough understanding of the features that end customers looks for in these services and implementing them at much lower price tag is the key for running a successful VPS hosting services. Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. The key features of Azure are:

* 99.95% monthly availability

* Supports different OS and frameworks

* Instant deployment

* Instant Scaling of resources

* Pay only for the resources used

* Quality customer support

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud enables us to create a computing instance in Amazon’s network. The main highlights of these platform are:

* 99.95% availability

* Instant deployment and scalability of computing resources

* Web interface for managing firewall.

* Easy deployment using preconfigured images

* Custom configurations using custom images

* Pay for only the resources used

* Quality customer support

A normal deployment of a VPS server may take days with its regular routine of customer chating with the sales team, then another few days for the technician to set-up the server. Your website should provide the customers an option to create custom configurations, generate its cost and order it instantly. Providing predefined configurations and proper documentation of their pros and cons will also delight the customer. Once the customer has ordered the VPS, you should be able to deploy the server within hours.

Your plans should provide high availability. This can be implemented using high availability configurations like Xen Clusters. A lot of virtualization technologies offers high availability configurations.

Another factor is instant scaling or resources. The customer may be anticipating high traffic in in the next day and he may need to scale up the resource instantly.Scaling of computing resource can be done instantly in most virtualization technologies. An experienced support team can accomplish it in a few minutes. The only requirement is that you keep sufficient free resources in the hardware node. If the hardware node itself runs out of resources, you will need the DC technician to manually upgrade the resources. This can cause considerable downtime for server.

A web interface which allows the customer to login and perform tasks like viewing resource usage of his server, ordering new resources or servers etc will be an added advantage. The billing portal used by most hosting providers can be customized to implement these services unless you are using any third party applications like WHMCS.

Integrating a high availability configuration which provides instant scaling of resources coupled with quality customer support and competitive pricing will make the customer think twice before opting for Amazon or Azure.

The above is a very rough outline on Running VPS business competing amazon & azure , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Dipin.D works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in October 2010. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Appu Joseph Xavier works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves to watch movies in his free time.

what is a VPS?

A VPS or virtual private server which works by partitioning a single physical server. The Physical node consists of only one root operating system. Using software such as Parallels Virtuozzo or VM-Ware the same operating system can then be installed over the top of the Hardware Nodes creating multiple Virtual Nodes. These Virtual Nodes use the same registry and system files to maximize efficiency and minimise both memory and hard disk usage. This all allows for independent execution of the virtual servers without interference from the other virtual servers connected to the same physical server.

Different Types of VPS Services

1.Managed VPS hosting service

In managed VPS hosting service the hosting company supply professionals who are well trained in solving numerous kind of hosting relevant specialised problems, able to administrate and handle issues quickly. They also guarantee that your world wide web functions are at safe hands and let you able to concentrate on the other important tasks at the same time. Managed VPS hosting service supply 24/7 service to help you regardless of the location where you are located and time boundary. Further, they guarantee that your server is working actively without any issues.

2.Unmanaged VPS hosting service

In Unmanaged hosting service the hosting company will not provide any support regarding the issues related with software , resource , performance , troubleshooting or need general help in understanding server applications. The user is completely responsible for the management and troubleshooting of the issues caused in the server. Only hardware related issues will be handled by the hosting provider.

Advantages of VPS over shared hosting

1.Security

In the case of VPS hosting your file system is not accessible or viewable by any other customer, your files are ensured full privacy and security.

2.Control

In the case of VPS hosting, you are able to modify server configuration files, install applications or modify system software With administrative or root access.

3.Isolation

In the case of VPS hosting, You are fully isolated from other users and actions on the server. No other customer can slow down or affect your service.

4.Performance

In the case of VPS hosting, Your resources may be guaranteed based on your plan, nothing else on the server will affect the performance of your VPS

Why Purchase VPS Hosting?

VPS hosting is a package that gives you a big part of server for a web project. Most online web companies provide VPS servers only to several companies, all located on one server. So the possibility of bad neighbourhood common for Shared Hosting is incredibly small in case of VPS. Along with server safety you get nice amount of disk space, serious bandwidth, control panel, and a dedicated support.

A VPS server is a good choice if your project is already quite big and in the foreseeable future your site will have to host big amounts of media. For instance, your users will upload audios, videos, images or other documents that take much disk space. All these documents will stay on your server, so you’ll need more gigabytes for it. Also, VPS hosting can process more users coming to your web page.

The prices for this hosting type are quite moderate, but we advise you to check the reliability of any company offering you cheap services. Low price can cover bad functioning, poor hosting features or unreliable customers support.

The above is a very rough outline on advantages of VPS hosting , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Karthikeyan.S works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Appu Joseph Xavier works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2012. He loves to watch movies in his free time.

There may be instances in which your server goes down and you may need a technician to go to DataCenter and inspect the server. This can cost you both time and money. The fact is you can easily perform this task within minutes using any remote management devices. The primary aim of this article is to focus on Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) which is one of the most widely used remote management device.

IPMI provides the ability to remotely power on, power off, and reboot the server. It also provides a Serial Console and/or Keyboard-Video-Mouse as if you were sitting in front of the physical computer. IPMI uses a secondary network which is completely independent of the main network connection used by the regular users. If you are facing issues in the primary network, you will still be able to access the server via IPMI. It works independently of the operating system and can therefore be used before the Operating System boots up. You can even view the server screen while it is booting up using the remote console in IPMI. The device is password protected and user can’t access the server even though he has managed to access the IPMI’s network. Also, the traffic can be encrypted at hardware level using SSL. This adds to the security of the device. Since, IPMI devices operates on a separate network, an IP address has to be assigned to it.

The common tasks that you can remotely perform using IPMI:

* Remote Console : IPMI provides a remote console which is independent of the Operating System. It will work even if the server is down.

* Hard Reboots : IPMI can be used for hard reboot of the server and power cycling it. A power cycle will cut down the power to the server and then power it up.

* Altering BIOS settings : Since IPMI is independent of the Operating System, we can view the server screen while it is booting up, and alter the BIOS settings similarly to physically sitting in front of the system.

* Reseting the server password

* Monitoring the server via sensors : The sensors installed along with IPMI will provide vital information like CPU temperature, fan speed, power fluctuations etc. An event log is also available along with IPMI which will log events like power failures and BIOS generated events.

* Operating system installation

* Create sub accounts with limited privileges for the customers to perform basic tasks like server reboot.

An alternative technology for IPMI is KVM over IP switches (also known as IP KVM switches). But it is a bit more costly and doesn’t provide an option to mount a virtual drive. Intel Active Management Technology also facilitates remote management. But, it can be installed only with specific processors and the feature set is limited.

IPMI has its own variants that are customized by different vendors. The most common ones are Dell IDRAC and HP Integrated Lights-Out (ILO). Both provide almost same features and the performance. The cost varies according to the specifications of the IPMI card.

Most of the new servers have in built IPMI cards. Installing IPMI cards in a server is a fairly straight forward procedure. You will have to power down the server and plug in the IPMI card. Then boot the server from the installation CD and make the changes to BIOS as mentioned by the provider. An IP address is assigned to the IPMI device as it uses a different network. Since IPMI is independent of the Operating System, no specific software is required to be running in the server unless you wish for a graceful reboot option.

The above is a very rough outline of the IPMI service we provide, and if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Dipin D works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in September 2010. He loves reading books and listening to music in his free time.

Blog edited by :

Vivek Kumar works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. He joined Bobcares in April 2011. He loves to watch movies in his free time.

ATOP is an advanced interactive monitoring tool to analyze the load and hardware resources on a Linux system. It shows the CPU, Memory, Disk and Network resource usages. Atop gives the resource occupation on system level followed by the information of processes that have been active during the time interval (10 seconds default).

In an Atop window , various system activity reports can be generated by using different keys:
Key m : Memory consumption
Key d : Disk utilization
Key s : Scheduling information
Key v : Variable information
Key c : Command line
Key p : Accumulated per program
Key u : Accumulated per user
Key n : Network utilization

Installation

Logs

When atop is installed, a cronjob is activated to run a background incarnation of atop that writes compressed samples to a log file in raw format.
These log files can be found in the directory /var/log/atop. When the command “atop -r” is started, today’s log file will be shown. When specifying another date as argument, the concerning log file will be shown.
For example: To view log file corresponding to the date 23rd June 2012, you can use the following command:

[~]# atop -r 20120623

Advantages

Atop has some major advantages compared to other performance-monitors:

1. Resource consumption by all processes
It shows the resource-consumption by all processes that were active during the interval, so also the resource-consumption by those processes that have finished during the interval.

2. Utilization of all relevant resources
Shows system-level counters concerning cpu-, memory- and swap-utilization, however it also shows disk I/O and network utilization counters on system-level.

3. Permanent logging of resource utilization
It is able to store raw counter-data in a file (compressed) for long-term analysis on system- and process-level. By default the daily log files are preserved for 28 days .

4. Highlight critical resources
It is able to highlight resources that have (almost) reached a critical load by using colors for system statistics.

5. Accumulated process activity per user
For each interval it is able to accumulate the resource consumption for all processes per user.

6.Accumulated process activity per program
For each interval it is able to accumulate the resource consumption for all processes with the same name.

7. Disk and network activity per process
In combination with optional kernel patches it shows process-level counters concerning disk I/O and network activity.

The above is a very rough outline of the System Monitoring Tool (Atop) , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you!

About the Author :

Saranya Soman works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in March 2011. She loves reading books and listening to music in her free time.

Blog edited by :

Arundhati Rath works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in June 2011. She loves listening to music in her free time.

Bobcares, a global leader in providing professional 24/7 Technical Support and Server Management, Software Development and Phone Support services to ISPs, Web Hosts and Data Centers, announces its popular server monitoring Web application, iHawk-Web’s new reporting feature.

With the new Web version of iHawk monitoring system, you can view the status of the servers you are monitoring, including the all new uptime report for server availability. The report enables you to view daily, weekly and monthly uptime reports. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes our network service won’t behave as per our requirement and in most of the cases the log do not help us to trace out the issue. Here comes the role of tcpdump and wireshark utility.

tcpdump is a packet sniffer. It captures the packets that fly in and out of the machine. tcpdump understands protocols and host names. First thing you have to remember is that you have to login to the server as root or be a sudoer. It is better to redirect the output to a file for debugging purpose. You can play on the recorded file to filter the packets that you are not interested to see. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobcares, a global leader in providing professional 24/7 Technical Support and Server Management, Software Development and Phone Support services to ISPs, Web Hosts and Data Centers, announces that its popular server monitoring mobile application, iHawk, is now available for your Android powered phones. The app is a well tailored solution for server monitoring and management on the go.

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Whether you believe what Julian Assange is doing is right or wrong, you’ll still have to admit that the amount of traffic WikiLeaks is generating is the dream of any web site owner and the dread of every web host. It is estimated to be receiving over 3,000 visitors per second. Not to mention the DDoS attacks and hack attempts. So how do they actually do it? Lets take a look at how WikiLeaks have been working hard to keep their site online.

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