I’m an ICT student, I’ve gotten classes on several subjects: coding(C#, Java), webdevelopment(XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP), databases(MySQL), Computertech(ASM coding, pc-architecture), Datacom(Cisco networking).
But I still wonder, how do you go about setting up a real big webproject, which requires dedicated servers.
I’ve been doing this for 2 years now, I’ll probably graduate in another year or 2, but I haven’t come about setting up something big and having to spend loads of time to configure it.
I don’t even know how to set up a dedicated server. It’ll probably live after its namesake: being dedicated to one task. But still, what does that look like? How do I work with it when I have to check things on it? How do I optimize it? How do I set up swift interaction with the other server(s) and how do I keep server load and bandwidth usage down.
These are all questions my school can’t answer for me, simply because they have a set of courses to give and can’t step outside that. As for me doing it myself, I can’t afford stuff like that. And I don’t like renting stuff like that either. You give money for some servers that are located several hundred miles away. I don’t want that, I want the server within walking distance. I need to be able to walk up to that machine and configure it myself. Yet that’s pretty unrealistic, financially speaking.
Also, when I think of servers, I think of this stuff:
Is it cliche to think all good servers look like that?
Dedicated servers don’t have to be dedicated to just one task, they may also be used for many different tasks. A dedicated server is named so because it gives one customer full access over the entire server rather than for example shared hosting where the customer only gets to use a certain amount of resources before they are asked to leave.
As for working with dedicated servers, that relies entirely on what OS it is running, if it is running Windows you will most likely be RDC’ing into the server to maintain it, if it is running some flavour of Unix or Linux you will most likely SSH into it giving you a terminal. It varies greatly depending on your end goal!
Optimisation in terms of what? If you want to optimise web applications you load test them, if you want to optimise the data storage you test your application to make sure it is making the best use of the storage backend you have decided to use. The question is vague and does not give any examples of what you are looking for.
Load balancing is an entirely different subject than using dedicated servers. It is a piece of hardware/software that acts as the front end for a bunch of servers and it picks the server with the least amount of load to serve the request to the user. There are many different pieces of software out there that do load balancing, as well as hardware that will accomplish the same feat.
And yes, it is very cliché to think all servers look like that. A server can be your standard off the shelf hardware stuck in a standard PC case. It does not have to be a certain size, it does not have to be mounted in a rack.
As for your school having a very set class schedule and classes, you should consider asking them for a tour of their ‘datacenter’ so you can see what their set-up looks like. You may also consider asking them for more information, and or seeing if they are open to explaining and or helping you learn what you seek to learn!
If you happen to have a second computer lying around, that you can run something like Linux you can start experimenting and learning. It is cheap, and won’t cost you a whole lot. Personally I have multiple computers with various different OS’s on them so that I can experiment.