Re: What happened to rpgenerationx.com?

Neither is Tomcat... Websfear hardley is as well, as it's
resources (it's own and the software it runs) are 100 times
that of the Classic (CERN) server.  Sure, they advertise it
as such, but they forget to inform you that for comperable
performance you'll need 10 processors and 20 gig of memory.
Apache wasn't specifically designed for commerce either.

Being "designed for commerce" is simply a marketing ploy and
a play on words.  CERN was developed to just use to show
peoples personal pages and pictures of their cats?  No.
Again, it's the hardware software and how resources are
handled that makes a difference.  For example, if Classic
started "real" threads instead of new jobs (a FAT thread) it
would help.  But, then it would probably not work for 3
releases because of the change and we'd be back to square
one.


On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 13:16:28 -0500
 "Bryan Yates" <byates@co.collin.tx.us> wrote:
> Why havent't you converted to a much more stable server
> like Apache, with Tomcat or WebSphere, or BEA Weblogic?
> These servers were designed with commerce in mind and the
> CERN server was NOT.  It seems to me as though your'e
> using a pair of pliers when you should be using a box end
> wrench and getting mad when the bolt head gets stripped.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Borts [mailto:Andrewb@SETACORPORATION.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 12:54 PM
> To: web400@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: [WEB400] What happened to rpgenerationx.com?
>
>
> We actually worked with the IBM folks to try and resolve
> it, and set thread count accordingly to their suggestions
> - which varied greatly.  I even theorized that the
> AS/400's built in security could have thought the
> Firewall was starting a Denial of Service attack against
> the AS/400 so I either Disabled or enabled this
> functionality and tested this way.
>
> Once we'd cover one hole, another one would appear.  It
> was VERY ugly.  There wasn't a single smooth E-mail blast
> the AS/400 [E-mails sent to between 200 thousand
> customers and 1 million customers] could survive without
> going down.
>
> Everyone gets all fired up when I state that the AS/400
> IS a very reliable system - TRUE - and it IS a very
> robust operating system - TRUE - but the HTTP server
> isn't as reliable, and darn close to sub-par in it's
> reliability.
>
> When they had days of "Big E-mails" I setup the
> Management Central to monitor the system, and BEEP if the
> performance level of the system would drop to about 1%
> (the system was up 24x7 and we always had a steady stream
> of about 300 people an hour hitting our systems between
> Midnight and seven am.)   When the HTTP server stopped
> responding, there was no message, no warning (other then
> the drop in performance) and no customers.  Only thing to
> do was end & re-start the damn thing - NOT the STRTCPSVR
> *HTTP RESTART(*HTTP) that would FAIL half the time.  I
> setup Brad Stones GETURI program to surf the site, and
> when the response dipped to about 2 minutes response
> time, I knew I was having a problem (since the norm was
> sub-second response) - I would get paged when these
> problems existed.  If I didn't do this, by the way - my
> partners would page me too - so there was ALWAYS a need
> to fix problems and prevent new ones from EVER happening.
>
> The same pattern STILL exists Nathan - the GENX site
> dropped for NO REASON, and the ignite 400 site drops for
> no reason.  Is fiddling with the controls of the dang
> thing the option?  Is switching to Apache the option?
>
> I'm going to make this statement now and forever more.
> IBM doesn't WANT the AS/400 to become the next WEB
> anything.  It's a back end system.  There is NO rack
> mountable AS/400 nor will there ever be one (IBM please
> prove me wrong!).  There is a rack mountable RS/6000 -
> remember the system made of roughly the same stuff as an
> AS/400?!?  So I can't cluster the systems in a rack, as
> people do with Dells, and RS/6000's and now Mac's.  I
> still need a kick butt Load Balancer in front of a bunch
> of TINY systems (which don't exist in the AS/400 world!)
> so I can take the traffic, or have the redundancies that
> naturally exist in the smaller server world.   I can't
> save space unless I buy that HUGE MONSTER rack with a
> slider capability built in, which gives me a whopping
> total of 2 AS/400's where I can normally have about 20
> Dells, or even 5 RS/6000's.  So when I want to Co-locate
> (which I have done to get more communications) an AS/400
> - I spend significantly more per month because I'm
> sitting in open floor space or sitting on a special shelf
> constructed for AN AS/400...
>
> To play in this arena, Apache seems to be the answer -
> because of HIGHLY available HTTP serving support there,
> but HTTP classic server is being dropped like a hot
> potato soon (V5R4/5?) so I wonder exactly how much
> DE-bugging and support we're going to get as time draws
> end of it's lifecycle...
>
> The AS/400 is a perfect communications box - great for
> B2B, but B2C is only for LIGHT shops only, and only if
> you HAD an AS/400 anyway.
>
> Andrew Borts / Webmaster
> Seta Corporation
> 6400 East Rogers Circle
> Boca Raton, FL 33499
>
> E-mail: Andrewb@setacorporation.com
> Corporate web site http://www.setacorporation.com
> E-Commerce web site http://www.palmbeachjewelry.com
>                               http://www.myfreeitems.com
> Voice: 561-994-2660 Ext. 2211 / Fax: 561-997-0774
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nandelin@RELATIONAL-DATA.COM]
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 6:22 PM
> To: web400@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: [WEB400] What happened to rpgenerationx.com?
>
> Andrew,
>
> This sounds like it may be related to the number of
> threads your HTTP Server
> was running.  Normally an IE client requires two (2)
> threads, and a Netscape
> client may require up to twelve (12) threads.  Do you
> recall the number of
> concurrent users you were trying to support, and the
> threads you were
> running?
>
> Nathan M. Andelin
> www.relational-data.com
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Borts" <Andrewb@setacorporation.com>
> To: <web400@midrange.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 3:40 PM
> Subject: RE: [WEB400] What happened to rpgenerationx.com?
>
>
> This is a common problem with HTTP server classic (I
> don't know if it
> happens on Apache) on an AS/400...
>
> The 400 takes connections and then instead of answering,
> it starts failing,
> and instead of answering slowly - it craps out...
>
> The pattern is CPU usage is THROUGH the roof while the
> world creams us, then
> CPU usage drops to almost nothing, while the system
> TCP/IP connections rise
> un-answered.  It then (after about 2 minutes or so) comes
> back to life, but
> it's not the same - you then END & restart the server and
> it works again.
>
> This was something I noticed with a HIGH volume hitting
> fast and furious.
>
> Andrew Borts / Webmaster
> Seta Corporation
> 6400 East Rogers Circle
> Boca Raton, FL 33499
>
> E-mail: Andrewb@setacorporation.com
> Corporate web site http://www.setacorporation.com
> E-Commerce web site http://www.palmbeachjewelry.com
>                               http://www.myfreeitems.com
> Voice: 561-994-2660 Ext. 2211 / Fax: 561-997-0774
>
>
>
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Bradley V. Stone
BVS.Tools
www.bvstools.com