On 4/20/07, Nicholas Moreau <nicholasmoreau(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/20/07, Delphine Ménard
<notafishz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Those are all
caching servers. There is no hosting of content as such.
So they keep backup copies, just in case the Tampa servers are
destroyed by an errant asteroid? They don't help defray the strain on
the servers at all?
No, they "cache" the content. I'm not that good at this whole
technical stuff but it works something like this:
-The squids cache the content when it is called from anyone (they take
the last update from the db in Tampa and show the page)
- When a non logged in user calls for a page, the squids look if there
is a more recent version of it in Tampa, if not, they serve the page
they have in store.
- All logged in traffic goes to Tampa
45% of the overall traffic is served by Amsterdam. So to answer you
question, yes, it relieves the strain ;-)
Yaseo (Yahoo) works the same ways, with squids
On a legal standpoint, squids (cache) are considered mirrors, not the
original thing.
Cache and backups are different things, but even backups would not be
considered the real thing, since they are static.
Believe me,
this has been cleared with many lawyers ;-).
The French ones are not there at all anymore.
Still listed here...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers
Not any more. Thanx for pointing it out.
In any case,
the primary goal of a chapter should definitely not be
hosting content, but making sure that the content hosted by the WMF is
spread and used as much as possible.
Certainly wasn't going to be a primary goal, but one to explore. The
reasoning was that it would provide Canadians with better, more
reliable access to the site. I'll put it on the backburner.
Hmmm, Canadians probably have faster access than most people, being
closer to FL.
Delphine
--
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