Doug Seven's Blog

Introduction to Project H

We were recnetly task to build an online image library (Project H). We'll reveal the details of the deployment later, but its fairly big.

Currently we're designing the physical and logical architecture.The idea right now is to build the system using 1-3 SQL Servers and 5-10 Web servers (running Windows Server 2003 of course). All of the image data will be stored in, and served from the database server(s).

The image library will have Passport integration. Users wanting to put images into the image library will have to have signed in with Passport and registered with The Hive. Users who are simply downloading images do not have to be registered. There will be several other features that will require registration, but that is the basic functionality.

We will be developing the system using a logical 3-tier approach. The Presentation layer will be built with ASP.NET server controls, and a collection of custom controls. The Business layer will consist of objects that represernt the data and enforce the business rules. The Data Access layer will be soley responsible for moving data using the SQL data provider.

As we architect and develop this I'll be posting more, but be aware that we have only 4-weeks to build this system.

Servers and Cell Phones

As you may have heard (via Donny's blog) the DNJ server was running poorly because all the new features, which added a lot of CPU hit and DB traffic. Donny and I chatted about how to solve the problem, and tried a few things before deciding we needed more servers. Up to this date DNJ has been running off of a single, dual-proc server (actually we used to run off a single 500 MHz server).

Daisy Cutter (our existing server) is a dual 1.2 GHz CPU with 1 GB RAM. We just added The Beast, a server Donny was using for dev testing, that is a dual AMD XP1600+ machine with 2 GB RAM (I believe).

We just ordered another server to replace Daisy Cutter, which will also be a dual AMD XP1600+ machine with 2 GB RAM. The new machine will be our Web Server, and will be running Windows Server 2003 (with IIS6.0). Daisy Cutter will not be retired, but rather it will be turned into a staging and source control server.

I'll keep you posted on how I like the new phone.

The new servers will be set up this week sometime.

On a side note, I lost my Samsung I-330 PalmOS phone last night, so today I went and replaced it with the SCP 5300 phone. Its not a PalmOS phone, but it is a PCS Vision phone (with a built-in camera, not an attachement). I didn't like the fact that the I300 phone had a touch screen- I can't feel the buttons while dialing and driving.