Re: Hosting a Large Number of Node Apps on the IBM i

Henrik,

there is in principle nothing wrong with clustering in node.js
but you will bind yourself to a clean node.js environment.

Why would this be? Suppose I run an IIS web server on a Windows machine. I
use this IIS server as a reverse proxy to a node app that is running on,
say, port 8787 of my IBM i. Why wouldn't I be able to use the cluster
module inside the node app that is running on port 8787 of my IBM i?

You've mentioned using NGiNX as a reverse proxy. I know NGiNX was designed
to be fast. However, I've also read that NGiNX is not a good choice on
Windows:

"Nginx on Windows is really not an option for anything you’re going to put
into production. Windows has a different way of handling event polling and
the nginx author has chosen not to support this; as such it defaults back
to using select() which isn’t overly efficient and your performance will
suffer quite quickly as a result.
NGiNX does not support, which can result in poor performance. So, if I had
to set up a reverse proxy on Windows, I would probably use IIS." Martin
Fjordvald (
https://blog.martinfjordvald.com/2011/04/optimizing-nginx-for-high-traffic-loads/
)

So, if I had to set up a reverse proxy on Windows, I would probably use
IIS.

On the IBM i, I'm not sure whether NGiNX or Apache would be my choice. I'm
guessing NGiNX is faster than Apache on the IBM i. But I'm also guessing
that Apache has better tooling and more extensions to make life easier for
developers. Apache has been around longer. I might use both web servers:
Apache as a reverse proxy for most web apps, and NGiNX as a reverse proxy
for web apps that I need to scale big.

I'm always open to other points of view.

Thanks,

Kelly Cookson
IT Project Leader
Dot Foods, Inc.
1.217.773.4486 ext. 12676
kcookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Henrik
Rützou
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 10:21 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Hosting a Large Number of Node Apps on the IBM i

Kelly

there is in principle nothing wrong with clustering in node.js but you
will bind yourself to a clean node.js environment.

By moving load balance and reverse proxies up into NGiNX you are able to
run a mix of technologies "under the hood" such as node.js, apache or java
or even .NET

In your case you could benefit of having your .NET team and your IBM I
team working under the same platform.

For other, amoung them myself, I would need to have existing Apache Apps
running side by side with node.js.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Henrik,

I am not sure what you are conveying in this most recent email. Are
you in agreement with what I believe to be true?

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i


On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Henrik Rützou <hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Aaron

here is another ... (performance figures)

Node.js (stand alone) 1434s
Single threaded C 413s
Node.js + Fabric Engine 55s
Multi threaded C 53s

http://fabricengine.com/





On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Aaron Bartell
<aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Here's the kicker:

"With a little work, the previous code can be modified to utilize
all

of

the available cores on a machine. In the following example, the
HTTP

server

is refactored using the cluster module. cluster allows you to
easily

create

a network of processes which can share ports. In this example, a

separate

process is spawned for each system core, as defined by the numCPUs
variable. Each of the child processes then implements the HTTP
server,

by

listening on the shared port."

He's talking about deliberate delegation of IBM i jobs (aka
processes)

so

multiple Javascript statements can be run in true parallel, which
is

not

possible with a single process. But this doesn't address the C

threads

where Node.js APIs deliberately offload known I/O blocking to C

threads.

When Node.js does that offloading there is in fact multiple cores
being used that originated from a single Node.js process (again,
as I

understand

it).

Thoughts?

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i


On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Henrik Rützou <hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Aaron

here is a link ...

http://cjihrig.com/blog/scaling-node-js-applications/



On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Aaron Bartell <

aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx

wrote:

it cannot use several cores at the same time so one node.js

instance

is

limited to what processing power one core is able to deliever.

Are you sure this is correct and do you have a source for your

information

that we can review? Yes, Node.js runs as a single thread, but
the underlying C architecture of Node.js uses threads for
blocking I/O

calls

(i.e. file system, networking, etc). So that means, as I

understand

it,

that a single Node.js server could make use of many cores
because

of

the

underlying C threads.

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i


On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Henrik Rützou
<hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Tim

I was not saying that a single node.js instance was glued to
a

specific

core
but it cannot use several cores at the same time so one
node.js

instance

is

limited to what processing power one core is able to deliever.

This is not IBM Power specific, it is the same on all hw

platforms.

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 3:40 PM, Kelly Cookson <

KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Nathan,

Kelly is asking about a mix of both types of routing -

External

routing

within a reverse-proxy / load-balancer as well as
internal

routing

within Node's own HTTP service.

That's correct. I think my concerns have pretty well
addressed

in

people's

responses. I probably want to use a combination of
strategies

for

setting

up routes. For example:

* use a web server as a reverse proxy that routes to node
apps

running

on

their own ports,

* use something like vhost or http-node-proxy within a
node app

that

routes to other node apps running on their own ports,

* use something like the ExpressJS router within a node
app

that

routes

to

modules or sub-apps that run within the same port.

* use something like the ExpressJS router within a node
app

that

routes

to

different pages of the app.

I don't need to worry so much about the number of ports
used by

node

apps.

I didn't hear that any of the routing strategies above
would be

better

or

worse when it comes to setting up a production environment
for

fail-over

and load balancing--especially if I use a web server as a

reverse

proxy.

And I didn't hear that any of the routing strategies above

would

be

better

or worse for scaling up node apps (e.g., clustering).

Thanks,

Kelly Cookson
IT Project Leader
Dot Foods, Inc.
1.217.773.4486 ext. 12676
kcookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of

Nathan

Andelin
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 7:46 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Hosting a Large Number of Node Apps
on

the

IBM

i

I am sure Kelly is talking about the top level routing
to the

app

and

how to handle that as opposed to the question of
internal

routing

to

"screens"

within the app.

Kelly is asking about a mix of both types of routing -
External

routing

within a reverse-proxy / load-balancer as well as internal

routing

within

Node's own HTTP service.

How would one configure both so that a broadly-scoped
system

performs

well, scales well, you don't introduce too many HTTP

restarts?

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