
Wikipedia simplifies IT infrastructure by moving to one Linux vendor - davidw
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Servers+and+Data+Center&articleId=9116787&taxonomyId=154
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shawndrost
Somewhat unrelated: why is anyone using physical servers instead of AWS, aside
from legacy considerations?

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BrandonM
One good reason is that Wikipedia was around before Amazon offered web
services. Since then, while I'm sure they've added more broadband and servers,
I would guess that they are not mass-replacing old servers, instead simply
adding new ones when they are needed. Being a non-CPU-intensive website,
7-year-old servers are surely adequate in the backend.

I would guess that the newer, more powerful servers have a lot of memory and
sit up front caching requests, while the older ones act as the database and
process infrequent requests like edits.

That they are migrating to Ubuntu does not indicate that they are replacing
their hardware. Surely they are just installing it on all their servers to
make administration easier.

If Wikia did not already have a ton of existing machines and if Amazon gave
them a bargain rate since they are non-profit, using AWS might make sense. As
things exist though, using AWS would surely be less cost-effective.

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shawndrost
True, I've updated my question to ask what I really want to know. Sorry to
make your comment into an odd non-sequitor :)

