Re: CGIDEV2 performance versus Net.Data

Sorry, Joel, no offense was intended.

The ONLY part of your approach I was referring to was your daily ending and
restarting the server to clean up activation groups, threads, etc.  I certainly
didn't mean to imply that this is wrong; only that it isn't necessarily
required.  Nathan, in support of his belief that CGI does not scale well,
suggested that since you were doing it once a day, busier sites would therefore,
have to do so even more often.  I was saying, "not necessarily so."

I should have made it more clear that I was referring only to the daily ending
and restarting of the server; not your entire approach, which is sound and has
worked well for you.

The difficulty I perceived you had was when you said "2) Originally I was having
a problem where the 400 was creating too many server instances to keep up with
demand.  Even though I set the limits at server start-up, by the end of the day
they would still be maxed."  For some reason, you were not able to throttle the
server.  Maybe this was a server bug?  In any case, it was a difficulty for you
at the time.  No judgment was implied.

With your current 270, it is no longer a problem.  With the 170, if the server
had been throttled, you might not have had to end and restart it every day, at
least not for that reason.

With the server properly throttled and CGI programs well written, no one should
have to end and restart the server daily for the purpose of cleaning up threads,
activation groups, etc.  For other reasons?  Individual choice.  Common
practice?  Perhaps.  Any harm done?  Other than the site being unavailable for a
short time, no.  Absolutely necessary?  No.  Required more often for busier
sites?  No.

Again, I apologize for unintentionally offending you.





Mel Rothman
CGIDEV2 Author
IBM eServer iSeries Custom Technology Center (iCTC)
Rochester, Minnesota



"Joel R. Cochran" wrote:
>
> 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
> 800-480-8810 (va toll free)
> 540-885-8050 (phone)
> 540-886-1589 (fax)
> www.vamanet.com
> mailto:custservice@vamanet.com