performance of cgi-interactive programs

We are running many interactive rpg-cgi programs here now with 10-20
customers
on-line at a time.

I have done some testing due to some "concerns" over response time.
Some of these customers used the old dial up to the AS/400 and
ran mochasoft (5250 green screen emulator) and now they are
using the web application and it is slower.

I tested here even over our 100Mb Ethernet line both ways -
response time here for 5250 was 1 - 1.5 seconds
response time for HTTP was 2.5 - 3.0 seconds;

personally I don't see the problem;
however I am used to some web apps being slow - even Amazon is not lightning
fast all the time.

we have a model 820, total cpw of 600 with 120 to interactive
we have 114.6Gb dasd at 60% and 1.8 Gb memory
we are current on ptfs and are at V4R5, going to V5R1 early next month

Any ideas where I can look to speed this up -
even though I know the http has more bytes to send (over a DSL line)
as compared to a dial up, lucky to connect at 26,400bps -
due to 5250 data streams being more "compact", but the web pages
are mostly text, almost no images (save for buttons) (10Kb-40Kb text files
if save source as and images are 1-3Kb
so at most I am sending over 75Kb even on the big pages, but averaging 40Kb
per page)
I am concerned that this will degrade as we add customers.

Or do I just have very impatient customers using this app?

Thanks in advance for any ideas (besides a really big dedicated AS/400 to do
only web services, no budget for that:)  )


Mark A. Manske
Fleming CSD - Plymouth Division
Sr. Project Lead
Phone      (763) 545-3700 extension 273
Web Site  http://www.minter-weisman.com
E-Mail      mailto:mmanske@minter-weisman.com