RE: CGIDEV2 performance versus Net.Data

["Joel R. Cochran" <jrc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeez... no wonder my ears were burning last night...

>Joel Cochran's approach isn't necessarily what other CGI users
>do or should do.
>
What's so unusual about my approach?  I run named activation groups, use
standard CGI techniques, and the last I checked nightly cleanup routines
were pretty commonplace... All I did was what this list is about, shared
with Nathan some of my experiences in the hopes that it might be helpful.

>Again, well written CGI named activation group programs should
>consume a
>constant amount of storage over their running life.  And, although Joel
>apparently had difficulites with it, one can, and should,
>throttle the number of
>threads the server uses to match the system's configuration in
>order to maintain
>performance under heavy load.  See the Webmaster's Guide for details.
>
The only problems I had (at the time) were lack of experience and training.
We were experimenting on a 170 with 73cpw which also happened to be a full
time production machine.  When we took 250,000 hits in one month then YES we
had "problems".  If you follow the guidelines in the documentation, there is
a formula that tells you how many threads you should use.  Based on our CPW
ours should have been 1.5... obviously that wasn't going to cut it and at
that point I couldn't take the site down, so I let it go and fill out it's
max number of threads everyday, and then started the nightly routine to kind
of reset everything.

Today, that simply isn't a problem.  I've got a dedicated 270 with over
1,000 CPW that does nothing but run the website.  Not to mention that I
learned an awful lot over the last year about this stuff.  While I don't
claim the knowledge base that you and the other CGI gurus can, I think I can
hold my own when it comes to efficiency, productivity, and writing "well
written CGI named activation group programs".  And you can't deny our
success: we originally went from concept to delivery in less than 3 months,
and included in that time were learning RPGIV, ILE, HTML, JavaScript, HTTP,
CSS, SSI, and enough Java to do Applets!  So please, make all the comments
you want about my approach, just don't patronize me.


Joel R. Cochran
Director of Internet Services
VamaNet.com
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