[ Thanks to Dan Orzech
for this link. ]
“The days when people watched the news just on TV are over. A
growing number of consumers want to get their news off the Net, in
video form as well as in print. And in the spring of 1999, Atlanta,
Ga.-based broadcaster CNN Interactive Inc. discovered that it
wasn’t prepared for just how many of its customers wanted to watch
CNN news on the Web.”
“With traffic on its Web site skyrocketing, CNN Interactive
realized that its streaming media server farm, which was running on
Sun Solaris servers, would have to be expanded rapidly.
“Performance was going to suffer unless we quickly put a server in
place that could handle 3,000 video streams,” says Tom Gerstel,
manager of enhanced service development at the company. Instead
of adding more Solaris servers, CNN Interactive chose systems
running on Linux. “A Linux system seemed capable,” says Gerstel,
“and its low price eased the cost justification.“
“The company now has 25 streaming media servers. Four of them
are dual-CPU Hewlett Packard NetServer LPR systems, with 500 MHz
Pentium III chips and 1 GB of RAM, running Red Hat Linux.”