[nycbug-talk] New Setup Questions

[Matt Juszczak]

We're launching an entirely new setup across FreeBSD boxes - about 50 
servers total.  I have two things which I'm still somewhat debating, and 
thought I'd get a second opinion.

First, instead of using CFEngine to manage the boxes, I was thinking of 
using an SVN-based setup.  Each server would checkout their appropriate 
files via SVN, and I would "trigger" each server when it needs an update 
via config files that would be fetched often via either ftp or svn.  This 
is neat and flexible, but not as complex as CFEngine.  Thoughts?

Second, I'm trying to decide how to do packages.  Across the 50 servers 
we'll have about 6 or 7 different hardware sets.  Some will be Dell, some 
IBM, etc.  Most will be 64 bit boxes (to address larger memory ranges). 
Should I set up a single server for each class (and do make package to 
create packages for each box), or should I just compile ports from source 
on each box, verifying that I'm installing the same package version each 
time (which will allow each box to take advantage of the benefits of its 
specific hardware).

Those are my two questions, and I'd appreciate any input anyone can 
provide.  Thanks!

-Matt