best hardware for mysql server and other advices

dear all,
im going to start a server that will offer web statistic to the users.

i already built the mysql database, the problem now is the best hardware that i should use for the server machine.

the database is composed by 25 tables , and that ones will be all opened for storing data and retrieve and solve queries.

i did everything under windows os (Xitami+PHP+Mysql) for the testing, but now i wish to use linux, i installed red hat 8.0 (it is a good choose? )

what the best hardware you suggest ?
memory quantity
number of processor
ecc..

thank you

Entropia

Also consider BSD

sure, you might want to update the versions of applications that you will use (Apache, MySQL, etc). Use a seperate computer that you don't use as a desktop and just run command line, this will keep resources usage low.

The computer's specs are not very important alone, I would focus on your internet connection first and not worry about hardware (assumming it meets OS minimum requirements) after you have gigabit or faster.

You forgot to tell us two important parameters:
Max number of concurrent users
Average number of concurrent users
A plus would be the size of the average recordset returned.

After getting a very fast connection I would suggest (as a default) a 2CPU 1Gb RAM 7200 rpm SCSI server.

Hi,

not ewasy to know how mny people will use the service.

i suppose to serve about 1000 people in the first year.

id like to know how big it is the result returned but i dont knwo how to measure it

any suggest ?

entropia

Apache generates logs which show precise information about who visits your site, when they visit, what they access, and some statistical information about them. The key is getting a good program to interpret these logs and present the results in an easy-to-overview format. I highly recommend webalizer for this purpose.

Turn on database logging for some time (and slow queries logging), then find out the most frequently runned queries (top 3 for example) and the ones that take longer to run.
Optimize indexes for those queries with the help of EXPLAIN.
Then with those queries you can calculate the average recordset size (rows and cols) and then calculate the size.

thank you all for the suggest, i will check about the xitami log file.

i forgot to say that i will put the web pages somewhere (hosting server ) and i will setup the server machine only for run the database and webserver software, so it should reduce the bandwith i need.

so the schema its :

user-->hosting --> my server machine

what do you think about this solution ?

entropia

Most hosts support MySQL... if you're going to pay anyways, why would you want to have it seperate on your own machine? Just wonering...

because i will be free about the space required by the database (at begin it will not a poblem but later it will be..)

entropia