The Web 2.0

[Theory?]

I made a quick remark in a recent thread that I'm starting the worlds first ever Web 2.0 Record Label. I could direct you to a few good links where I go into exhaustive detail regarding what exactly I mean by that, but that's not really relevant here. Right now I'm in the very early stages of development so I'm trying to gather what technologies would be worth my interest and time. I'm trying to create a no-bs platform that offers a myriad of tools for both musicians and music fans to use and communicate over.

So I ask you, geek nation, what do you like and dislike about Web 2.0? I'm asking from a technical standpoint, so things like "I like the shinny edible logos and names spelled like frappr and flickr and poopr" isn't really what I'm looking for.

In addition, if record labels served a greater purpose, rather than this passive entity that shoves music in your face, but rather served as an intermediary between fans and artists on a social networking level. In other worse, a label has its artists and the label provides a set of resources on their website that allow fans to communicate and interact with the artists in a very Web 2.0 fashion. What features would you like to see? I have some cool ideas that I think would be really cool, but I want ideas from other people.

[steelcobra]

It's just a hyped term for using AJAX to smooth out browsing. Just like how the Dot-com bubble was the big web 1.0 hype point.

[Theory?]

That is what I fear. It sounds like this it's another move towards a huge .com bust. People inveting lots of money into blogs to make money, but how long can it last?

I'm talking about much more than that, though. I'm building an entire platform.

Here:
http://www.stereoalliance.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dev:Feature_Log

That's the feature log I've been keeping up on. It's very poorly organized and not very well documented. I created a long thread in my forums that explains a lot of it.

The whole principle of the Modern Stereo Alliance is to create a community, a very tight knit, but large-scale community that not only connects fans to artists, but connects musicians from all walks of life to communicate and MOST importantly COLLABORATE with each other, and even with their favorite musicians.

The possibilities of this platform are nearly limitless as demonstrated by the immense and ever-growing feature set we intend to implement (see the wiki article).

There are a lot of aspects to this system so I'll try and break them down into simple explanations here. First off you have systems geared towards different audiences.

We have tools relevant to our use behind the scenes, such as content aggregation, templating, and content generation. These tools are more server-side scripts that really only apply to people working behind the scenes. However, this section is just as important as any.

Content aggregation will allow MSA artists to submit content through the MSA website (news, blog entries, media, etc.), and have it automatically sort itself out and display on the artist's personal website (as well as the MSA site). This means instead of creating numerous copies of the same information, we consolidate all information to one location and dynamically disperse the information to other sites as needed. For an easy to swallow example, one band may post some sort of news entry. That post will show up on the MSA site among all the other artists' news, but go to that artist's website, and the same news item will appear amidst their news as well without the band needing to make two entries or even bother to sort out their posts from the other artists.



Templating will allow us to quickly generate compelling websites for our artists that comply with the platform specifications. The sites will be built in a modular fashion which will allow us to add elements unique to each website so as to further attract visitors to use the band's website as well as the MSA site.

Content generation refers to the ability of the site to generate elements automatically. A prime example would be the media section of the site which will accept an upload of an mp3 audio file or an mpg video file and generate a unique media player instance to host the file in and display it on the site. Similar to media players found on sites like MySpace, PureVolume, etc. Except each file will have it's own unique instance of the media player.

On top of that we'll be integrating two kinds of news syndication engines, one will be used for news and relevant updates, the other will be a more generic blog meant for artists to post thoughts etc. as they please. The news engine will have a strict editing policy whereby news submitted must be approved by editors before being featured on the main site, or even added to the syndicate. The blog system will have an option to receive an edit, but by default this option will be disabled, as blogs are meant for more casually-toned entries that don't need to be 100% perfect. Again, bands that strive for more can opt for editorial approval if they so desire. Both engines will have full support for RSS feeds.

We will also be implementing a custom calendar with an RSS feed to inform people of important events coming up, including all tour schedules, important events, and anything else we may choose to put in there. The benefit of RSS feeds on the calendar should be painfully obvious. Think tourfilter.com (if you know what that is).

The site will be centered around a global BB system with a proper BB Code library and smilies to boot. The commenting system for news and blog articles, as well as the forums and the Project Management System will all attach to the BB system as modules and will all obey BB code specifications. There will be a PM system that will span the entire site. No modules will be limited to the forums. Almost anything possible in the context of the forums will be adapted to the comments system and the PMS. Rigid security features need to be implemented to handle user verification and preventing bots and trolls and the like from abusing the site. This includes banning capabilities and the such.














Next is a series of scripts geared towards the end-user.

Again, I mention the BB system, which while it encompasses the entire site, the primary center is the forums. These forums will be very standard and based on popular systems like InvisionBB, phpBB, and vBulletin.

Next is the site's most prominent feature, the Project Management System (PMS) which will be adapted to be the primary front-end to our BitTorrent tracker. I think the wiki article has a pretty good explanation of what we want to accomplish with the PMS, so I won't bother typing it again. In addition to the PMS, the torrent tracker will also allow for people to distribute their own material to other users. This content must be legitimate and the artist must have the right to freely distribute it. This will be heavily detailed in the TOS we will be drafting.

As development into the PMS system progresses we will definitely be exploring the potential to take the PMS front end off the server and create a stand-alone application where artists can access the tools provided by the PMS right from their desktop, as well as work offline and sync information with the server when internet becomes available.

I don't know if it's entirely necessary, but there is the option to include a java-based IRC chat right on the website. Perhaps this or some iteration will be available in the PMS client.











Finally, we have a set of scripts that bridge communication between artists and fans. The purpose of these scripts is to create a more in-depth experience for the fan community by providing them with rich content that allows them to communicate with their favorite MSA artists. I've gone into detail on some of the options we're looking at in the wiki article, so have a look at that and we can start to build upon those ideas as we move forward.

Other fields I would like to explore in the future include mobile content delivery, like sending short media snippets and RSS feeds directly to people's mobile devices. This isn't something I intend to implement at launch, but if we decide that this seems like another viable medium to pursue we can keep in mind during the development process.







The very bottom of the article details some of the technologies we will be implementing to develop and deploy this platform. It's going to take a lot of sweat and blood, but I have a lot of faith in this project and I'm willing to make the commitment to it. I just need every last bit of support I can get.

We may need to...h--hi....we may need to hiiiiiire people to do some of the more complex, flash-based front-end.

The post was directed at people I work which is why it reads as it does.

I'm just looking for some input because this platform is meant to be used so I want to get some ideas from people.

[steelcobra]

For the torrents, I'd recommend that that be on it's own server, and all starter files and actual torrents actually sit there. Since this is a music site, you want to keep the active web traffic and download traffic seperate.

[Theory?]

Yeah, we're going to do a ton of load-balancing. Adobe has this great new runtime environment called Apollo, which allows for development and deployment of client-side applications coded using web standards. So eventually we'll be making a lot of the resources client-based so our server is only responsible for management, storage, and routing of data. All front-end will be rendered on the client's side, which would be a really AMAZING thing.

[steelcobra]

Be careful about that though. Not one browser can properly run the smiley face CSS render test yet. And you need to be sure it works in all four major browsers. Plus that you keep on top of new versions, like the Firefox 3 beta when it's released.

[Theory?]

Be careful about that though. Not one browser can properly run the smiley face CSS render test yet. And you need to be sure it works in all four major browsers. Plus that you keep on top of new versions, like the Firefox 3 beta when it's released.

Well that's the beauty of Apollo, it's a runtime that executes on the client-side so all the visual effects are rendered by the runtime, not the browser.

For now, though, don't you worry, I will be all over compatibility. The user scope of this site is far too vast not to consider it.

[KN]

Be careful about that though. Not one browser can properly run the smiley face CSS render test yet. And you need to be sure it works in all four major browsers. Plus that you keep on top of new versions, like the Firefox 3 beta when it's released.

Opera's been able to do it just fine since V9. Firefox 3 can do it as well.



I'll volunteer to test the Firefox 3 nightlies. They're they're what?

[Theory?]

Actually while I'm at it, can anyone reccommend a good book on load-balancing, general server management, etc.?

We have't decided on whether we're going to use a Linux server or a Windows server. My friend and I are both experts at one but know **** about the other, so we have to decide at some point.

[steelcobra]

Window's the easiest to set up, add roles to, update, etc, but it costs a lot more.

Linux is smaller on the server, and is less of a viral target. But is a pain in the ass to set up and update.

[KN]

Actually while I'm at it, can anyone reccommend a good book on load-balancing, general server management, etc.?

We have't decided on whether we're going to use a Linux server or a Windows server. My friend and I are both experts at one but know **** about the other, so we have to decide at some point.

Unless you're going to use something that requires ASP.NET, stick with a Linux server. It's much, much less expensive, and far more easily manageable.

[Theory?]

Window's the easiest to set up, add roles to, update, etc, but it costs a lot more.

Linux is smaller on the server, and is less of a viral target. But is a pain in the ass to set up and update.

Well I could care less about how easy it is to setup. I'm not the Linux guy, I gave up on Linux a LONG time ago, right after it tried to kill my dog. My friend is the Linux guy. He's currently reading an intro to BASH because he really wants to be the server admin. If it's a bitch to set up, that's his problem, so long as it works and it works 99% of the time.

I can do Windows admin, that's not hard at all, but Linux always seemed like the more server-oriented OS. Like, it's only REAL purpose is to run on servers.

Unless you're going to use something that requires ASP.NET, stick with a Linux server. It's much, much less expensive, and far more easily manageable.

That too. I think we're going to end up doing a LAMP setup with whatever few extras we need. I don't touch ASP or anything with .NET appended to it, so yeah, no need for that.

[steelcobra]

And even then, Linux doesn't play as well in an enterprise environment. Too much to manage with too little active network management.

But if he's willing to put all the server work in, it's up to you to decide what software you want.

[KN]

So wait, you're not going to get a server through a reseller that can salvage it if it crashes and burns? Will you have physical access to it if you need to?

[Theory?]

And even then, Linux doesn't play as well in an enterprise environment. Too much to manage with too little active network management.

But if he's willing to put all the server work in, it's up to you to decide what software you want.

Well define "enterprise environment". This is for a web server with load-balancing partners for like, the app server, the DB server, the torrent server etc. We're not managing a network of...well we're not managing a network at all we're managing a website.

We also haven't figured out which hosting option we're going to take. Right now we're leaning towards Rackspace because they manage the OS for us, but we don't get to choose the distro or what modules we install etc.

We've thought about colocation, but we haven't really found any good data centers. We'd need something close to us so we can easily get the box if it fails, rather than waiting for it to show up on it's own.

[KN]

Remember that if choosing colocation, you forfeit having cPanel, which is rather nice, and far too expensive to buy yourself.

[steelcobra]

Ok, specifically, you're planning a four box web domain farm with future expandability. You need to have proximity in case of trouble, and you need to have 100% control over the software on the box. What kind of funding are you going to have for this project? If it's too small you may have to start with a single multi-task server and expand as revenue comes in. If it's in the 5 digit range, and you decide on Linux, you could start building up on your own until you can build up the credit to rent out a building.

[Theory?]

Remember that if choosing colocation, you forfeit having cPanel, which is rather nice, and far too expensive to buy yourself.

Well with Rackspace we get cPanel, but we also get remote access directly to the server. Also, they're responsible for the hardware and the OS so if something goes wrong, we call them and tell them what's wrong and they go fix it. They also set up the load balancing for us, so we just tell them how many servers we need, how we want them arranged and they set it up for us. The problem is you really pay for that kind of service, but in the long run it seems like it's totally worth it.

Ok, specifically, you're planning a four box web domain farm with future expandability. You need to have proximity in case of trouble, and you need to have 100% control over the software on the box. What kind of funding are you going to have for this project? If it's too small you may have to start with a single multi-task server and expand as revenue comes in. If it's in the 5 digit range, and you decide on Linux, you could start building up on your own until you can build up the credit to rent out a building.

Well we're still developing the platform right now, so once we have the platform ready in some presentable form we intend to take that in with us to a friendly banker and see if we can get some capitol, or if not, a loan. So money isn't the issue. We'll pay for the best solution when we're ready to start up.

I wouldn't really mind setting up a localized data center in like, my bedroom or whatever, but I don't own my apartment obviously so that wouldn't really be a viable solution. My friend lives at home, so he's got a steady place to set up, but I doubt his folks would be too psyched about having a massive pipe run into their house.

What's the deal with doing something like that? Are there reasonable ways to run the servers out of your house without major construction?

[KN]

*badump*

By the way, if you're not going with Rackspace in the end, here (http://www.ispconfig.org/)'s an open-source cPanelish (of course it can't be just as good) alternative.

[Tollwutig]

Well with Rackspace we get cPanel, but we also get remote access directly to the server. Also, they're responsible for the hardware and the OS so if something goes wrong, we call them and tell them what's wrong and they go fix it. They also set up the load balancing for us, so we just tell them how many servers we need, how we want them arranged and they set it up for us. The problem is you really pay for that kind of service, but in the long run it seems like it's totally worth it.


What's the deal with doing something like that? Are there reasonable ways to run the servers out of your house without major construction?

Not sure about Rackspace in particular but you need to be careful when you're having someone else do the OS and Hardware because you are likely to get a Virtual Machine rather than actual hardware, and the VMs may not perform up to the standards you need.

As for building something in your house it's more than an internet pipe you'll be needing.

Dedicated Power - with a UPS
Dedicated Cooling - unless his parents are cold natured then they can keep warm with the servers
T-1 line depending on the are runs usually a couple hundred per month.
The Rack itself will run you a couple of grand.

Personally if you have the cash, rent rack space and put in your own equipment, then you can configure your hardware to suit your needs. (i.e. storage servers don't require large amounts of memory, while DB servers can run with as much memory you can afford.)

[Theory?]

Not sure about Rackspace in particular but you need to be careful when you're having someone else do the OS and Hardware because you are likely to get a Virtual Machine rather than actual hardware, and the VMs may not perform up to the standards you need.

As for building something in your house it's more than an internet pipe you'll be needing.

Dedicated Power - with a UPS
Dedicated Cooling - unless his parents are cold natured then they can keep warm with the servers
T-1 line depending on the are runs usually a couple hundred per month.
The Rack itself will run you a couple of grand.

Personally if you have the cash, rent rack space and put in your own equipment, then you can configure your hardware to suit your needs. (i.e. storage servers don't require large amounts of memory, while DB servers can run with as much memory you can afford.)

There's a really nice data center in the city I found, so perhaps that's an option. We need to explore a bit more. I'm pretty sure we're set on doing a Linux setup, why I don't know, but frankly I'm ok with worrying about one less thing.

The real question is what ideas can you guys give me for the content? What are your favorite features of a web-platform? If you were to access this particular site, what would you expect from it?

Anyone know any web coding/is ok with not being paid for a while/at all?

[Tollwutig]

There's a really nice data center in the city I found, so perhaps that's an option. We need to explore a bit more. I'm pretty sure we're set on doing a Linux setup, why I don't know, but frankly I'm ok with worrying about one less thing.

The real question is what ideas can you guys give me for the content? What are your favorite features of a web-platform? If you were to access this particular site, what would you expect from it?

Anyone know any web coding/is ok with not being paid for a while/at all?

Not a web coder but can give you hardware specs if you give me an idea of what you'll be demanding of your severs. I can only say one thing, stay way from IBM. Their RAID arrays suck, and lose your data about 50% of the time.
I know I am biased but for the easiest hardware setup, and best reliability go with HP Proliants or a HP C-class blade chassis. You'll spend more up front but you'll get better support and more reliability. Not to mention you can drop a line to the iLo which can give you remote console access as if you were sitting at the server itself.

[Theory?]

Not a web coder but can give you hardware specs if you give me an idea of what you'll be demanding of your severs. I can only say one thing, stay way from IBM. Their RAID arrays suck, and lose your data about 50% of the time.
I know I am biased but for the easiest hardware setup, and best reliability go with HP Proliants or a HP C-class blade chassis. You'll spend more up front but you'll get better support and more reliability. Not to mention you can drop a line to the iLo which can give you remote console access as if you were sitting at the server itself.

That comes installed?

Link plz!

EDIT:

Actually, I'm not too sure about something like that. Knowing Bryan (my friend) he's going to want to pick his distro to use, and I doubt it will be Red Hat (I know Red Hat is more practical, but he's an actual Linux user, his threshold for pain is through the ****ing roof.

Additionally, we can always buy the proper software to remotely connect to the server and access the desktop etc (not that he'd ever use a desktop on a Linux server. Give me SSH or give me death).

As for cPanel, I think I'm just going to make my own. My current host uses cPanel, and frankly I see no point. If I write my own cPanel, then I have the option of modularizing the system so that it not only links to every module on my site, but it only displays the modules people have access to.

Currently, I need to go to separate addresses to access cpanel, my news engine, my wiki, and my forum admin. If I do it my way, then it can look at a user like me and say "Ok you have access to everything" and then evaluate one of my artists and say "Ok, you only have access to x, y, and z." And for a regular user it would be "X and y" etc. That makes a lot more sense to me. Why would I pay for obfuscation?

[Tollwutig]

give you ssh or give death sure, but if you get a kernel panic and can't ssh into a box an iLo (http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/ilo/index.html) lets you power cycle the box without having to drive into your data center. Not to mention if you get the Advanced license you can map your Desktop's CDROM or an .iso to the iLO and it will report to the OS that it has a CD in a disk drive. This can help a lot when it comes to installing stuff.


As for which Flavor of Linux he'll use, he may get stuck with Red Hat, or be in pain, as none of the major Hardware manufacturers with actual server hardware with RAID, diagnostics, etc actually support all the flavors of Linux thus you get stuck in that particular box, unless you build your own hardware but then you are losing the major manufacturers ability to build in redundancy into the system.

HP supports the following:
Microsoft Windows Server 2000/2003
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Solaris 10 32/64-bit
VMware Virtualization Software

Those are all pretty much standard across, IBM, Dell, & HP. I highly doubt you can afford a Fujitsu or Sun, and a Unisys is well out of your price tag since starting units with 16 processors are around 100k.

Most of your stuff could be run on DL36x or DL38x as I don't see you needing more than 2 Dual-Core processors initially.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/en/WF04a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-241475.html

[steelcobra]

Not sure about Rackspace in particular but you need to be careful when you're having someone else do the OS and Hardware because you are likely to get a Virtual Machine rather than actual hardware, and the VMs may not perform up to the standards you need.

As for building something in your house it's more than an internet pipe you'll be needing.

Dedicated Power - with a UPS
Dedicated Cooling - unless his parents are cold natured then they can keep warm with the servers
T-1 line depending on the are runs usually a couple hundred per month.
The Rack itself will run you a couple of grand.

Personally if you have the cash, rent rack space and put in your own equipment, then you can configure your hardware to suit your needs. (i.e. storage servers don't require large amounts of memory, while DB servers can run with as much memory you can afford.)

In the winter they could probably use the heat generated by the servers as a secondary heat source, reducing the heating bill.

[Theory?]

In the winter they could probably use the heat generated by the servers as a secondary heat source, reducing the heating bill.

Yeah, really.

Ok, Toll, you have me sold. Tell me, I need an app server, a DB server, a web server, a torrent tracker server, and a whomping assload of storage. Tell me what I need.

[steelcobra]

Actually, a guy who has a massive work station/server rig/data storage setup for his work (with over ten LCD's in a freeform virtualizer to several computers) in his apartment doesn't even need to heat the room in the winter.

We run all Dell servers where I work. They never go down.

[Tollwutig]

Actually, a guy who has a massive work station/server rig/data storage setup for his work (with over ten LCD's in a freeform virtualizer to several computers) in his apartment doesn't even need to heat the room in the winter.

We run all Dell servers where I work. They never go down.

All servers go down... they run a mix here and it lines up (according to my customers who support them) IBM < Dell < HP. I also have a Sys Admin Friend who runs Dell, they are considering going to HP due to a)poor support b) servers having issues.

Theory which server needs the Storage?
For the Web Server Use a DL360 G5 dual processor, at least 8 GB of RAM. 2 146 GB drives mirrored should be ample for the web stuff, if not you have an assload of webpages, and you'll need to fill up the other 4 drive slots and put them in a RAID 5 seperate from the OS.

Torrent Tracker Server use the same thing as your Webserver. If you're going to hold the torrents themselves on this server, go with a DL380 G5 and use all 8 SCSI slots with 146. Use 2 for the OS mirrored, and the other 6 in RAID 5. (That'll give you about 700 GB of space once it's partitioned & formatted)

For the DB server use a DL585 G2. Put 4 dual core processors in it, and 32 GB of RAM. I am going to assume this is where you'll need most of you most of your Data Storage. Get an extra SCSI controller and a SA-50 (http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/disk_storage/msa_diskarrays/drive_enclosures/ma50/specs.html) which will give you 1.4 TB expandable capacity which should be more than enough for a start up. In fact you'll probably want to only expand that only as you need it.

As for your app server is it going to be Processor intensive? Memory intensive? Storage space intensive? Disk Read/write intensive?

Also I can only give you rough estimates, when you start looking either got to HP Direct, or a retailer and get specifics, go with specifications as to what you need and what kind of growth you expect.

[steelcobra]

A rackmounted setup is also better for expandability. They take up less space than tower models. And if you ever need to move it, it's all encased in one package, so you don't have to completely rebuild it at the new site.

[Theory?]

All servers go down... they run a mix here and it lines up (according to my customers who support them) IBM < Dell < HP. I also have a Sys Admin Friend who runs Dell, they are considering going to HP due to a)poor support b) servers having issues.

Theory which server needs the Storage?
For the Web Server Use a DL360 G5 dual processor, at least 8 GB of RAM. 2 146 GB drives mirrored should be ample for the web stuff, if not you have an assload of webpages, and you'll need to fill up the other 4 drive slots and put them in a RAID 5 seperate from the OS.

Torrent Tracker Server use the same thing as your Webserver. If you're going to hold the torrents themselves on this server, go with a DL380 G5 and use all 8 SCSI slots with 146. Use 2 for the OS mirrored, and the other 6 in RAID 5. (That'll give you about 700 GB of space once it's partitioned & formatted)

For the DB server use a DL585 G2. Put 4 dual core processors in it, and 32 GB of RAM. I am going to assume this is where you'll need most of you most of your Data Storage. Get an extra SCSI controller and a SA-50 (http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/disk_storage/msa_diskarrays/drive_enclosures/ma50/specs.html) which will give you 1.4 TB expandable capacity which should be more than enough for a start up. In fact you'll probably want to only expand that only as you need it.

As for your app server is it going to be Processor intensive? Memory intensive? Storage space intensive? Disk Read/write intensive?

Also I can only give you rough estimates, when you start looking either got to HP Direct, or a retailer and get specifics, go with specifications as to what you need and what kind of growth you expect.

Here's the thing, I don't know jack **** about load-balancing, I just know I'm supposed to separate instances that receive high traffic to themselves.

I would have thought that the web server would hold all the files since it's the one hosting the site itself, as well as the server that's telling every request where to get it's information from in the cluster. Perhaps I'm wrong.

The app server, and thus subsequently the DB server will, I assume, be doing the most work since the website is app based, but I don't know if you're supposed to put application access on the app server, or just application methods. No one has explained proper load-balancing to me yet, so I'm not 100% sure.

[steelcobra]

I'll use something I know about as an example: Sharepoint server. When you first start out, the default configuration is single server with expandability. That's SQL and Sharepoint in one box. But, as more users get into it, you can add a box to isolate the SQL to a seperate server, boosting performance. You can add more to act as mirrors beyond that as well.

The first question is obviously, are you expecting enough traffic initially to justify multiple servers? If so, interoperability is your prime concern. You may even want a server dedicated solely to making sure they play nice with each other. Because even if it's a client-side operational concept, if it delivers certain data out of order it may just frustrate users rather than be a great example.

I recommend this site quite a bit: www.worsethanfailure.com

Also, win2k3 Web edition is much cheaper than the standard edition: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/evaluate/web.mspx

[Theory?]

We have no users as of yet. We will probably be taking out some large sort of business loan (unless we can magically get some capitol), but ideally what money isn't spent on set-up will be used to sign our first act and thus we'll have some real product to provide to people. Eventually we'll have a large user-base, I'm sure.

This idea is too good for people to pass up.

[Tollwutig]

A rackmounted setup is also better for expandability. They take up less space than tower models. And if you ever need to move it, it's all encased in one package, so you don't have to completely rebuild it at the new site.

Proliant DL servers are all rack mount. Everything I listed there is rackmounted actually. :D

Here's the thing, I don't know jack **** about load-balancing, I just know I'm supposed to separate instances that receive high traffic to themselves.

I would have thought that the web server would hold all the files since it's the one hosting the site itself, as well as the server that's telling every request where to get it's information from in the cluster. Perhaps I'm wrong.

The app server, and thus subsequently the DB server will, I assume, be doing the most work since the website is app based, but I don't know if you're supposed to put application access on the app server, or just application methods. No one has explained proper load-balancing to me yet, so I'm not 100% sure.

Since your Web server is out on the web you don't want your App or Files on it as it is the most likely server to be hacked. The web server should only be requesting stuff from the app server who actually requests the data from the database(server). This way if you are ever hacked you just restore the webserver and all of your actual data stays behind the firewall.

[Theory?]

Proliant DL servers are all rack mount. Everything I listed there is rackmounted actually. :D



Since your Web server is out on the web you don't want your App or Files on it as it is the most likely server to be hacked. The web server should only be requesting stuff from the app server who actually requests the data from the database(server). This way if you are ever hacked you just restore the webserver and all of your actual data stays behind the firewall.

So the web server just handles and distributes requests?

[Tollwutig]

In a highly secure environment such as banking yes. The data is kept separate and behind a firewall. The Web server only holds the Web pages and handles requests to the application.