an application for 1000 users

[Jamunt]

Hi,

I want to create an application in which around 1000 users will be
served at one time. All of the users will be sending around 1 mb of
data. I will be parsing that data and would insert some of the data
into the database.


Is web service right choice for this kind of web applications. What
kind of performance problems i might encounter. Will ASP.net is the
right choice for this kind of application . And will IIS 6 is able to
stand this kind of web service.


Regards,
Jamunt

 

[John Timney \(MVP\)]

You'll need to work out how long a transaction takes on the architecture you
expect to use. ASP.NET and webservices wont have a problem with that volume
of users, but your server hardware and internet pipe may well have.

Read some good articles on planning and design. scale up and architecture

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms979199.aspx

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa478997.aspx

--
Regards

John Timney (MVP)
VISIT MY WEBSITE:
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog

 

[Mark Rae]

I want to create an application in which around 1000 users will be
served at one time. All of the users will be sending around 1 mb of
data. I will be parsing that data and would insert some of the data
into the database.

Is web service right choice for this kind of web applications. What
kind of performance problems i might encounter. Will ASP.net is the
right choice for this kind of application . And will IIS 6 is able to
stand this kind of web service.

That number of users will not present any sort of challenge to the software
you have chosen, so long as your hardware is up to it and you design your
system efficiently.

However, it will not do it for you on its own - you'll need to read up on
efficient design practices, database concurrency and locking issues,
scalability, failover etc...

 

[bruce barker]

your main issue will be how long the uploads take. a 1000 users are not
many for a website, but if the requests take very long then you have a
problem. iis will only support about 200 concurrent requests (default
config is a lot lower). if some of the users are dialup or use slow
networks and you really have 500-1000 concurrent users you will need a
web farm. you will want to configure the webservers and asp.net for max
connections to limit the number of machines.



-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[Jamunt]

Hi ,

In my scenerio

10 users will upload big chunk of data (8-10 mb) that might take 20 sec
- 1 min to process the request.

990 user will upload small data and call might take - 1 sec.

Will web gardening of IIS will help here ?

Regards,
Jamunt

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

You should distinguish between "web garden" and "web farm".

"Web garden" refers to setting affinity for more than one processor in the same
machine, so that more processors can process ASP.NET requests.

The ASP.NET QuickStarts explains web gardening well :
http://samples.gotdotnet.com/quickstart/aspplus/doc/procmodel.aspx

"Web farm" refers to more than one machine running the same ASP.NET application(s).

If your current server has more than one processor, "web gardening" will help you somewhat,
although what will be the main limiting factor is not the server's processing capacity, but its
network pipeline capacity, i.e., the bandwidth available for input/output from and to the server.

If your current server has only one processor, you cannot use "web gardening".

If your server has more than one processor, thread processing will improve
although I'm not sure you have a processing bottleneck at the levels you describe.

The size and number of the requests you describe are relatively immaterial.

It's their *concurrency* that's really important, as Bruce said.

If you have up to a hundred concurrent requests, and if you have
the necessary bandwidth, you should have no problem.

If you have more than that, you should consider a web farm.


Michèle Leroux Bustamante wrote an article named "The Quest for ASP.NET Scalability",
which you should review and understand :

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479040.aspx

Michèle explains some of the architectural and design decisions that may affect ASP.NET application
scalability.
She also explains how you can use Enterprise Services and MSMQ to reduce the effect of those
scalability problems.
Read the article and download the sample code :
http://download.microsoft.com/downl...6f-a327-79c4b7c887f7/msdnscalabilityquest.msi

You may be able to optimize your application -a lot- by implementing some of her recommendations.

This video by Chris Adams, on "Finding IIS Bottlenecks using Server Performance Advisor 2.0"
will also be of help :

View the video online :
http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=26&i=19

Or download it :
http://www.iis.net/downloads/webcasts/Technet Webcast - Finding IIS Bottlenecks using SPA 2.0.wmv

You can download the Server Performance Advisor 2.0 for Windows Server 2003 here :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...20-8c9d-46b9-a9a5-9bffcd237da2&DisplayLang=en

 

[Mark Rae]

"Web garden" refers to setting affinity for more than one processor in the
same
machine, so that more processors can process ASP.NET requests.

Does that apply to dual-core processors which, although only one physical
unit, are treated as two separate processors by the OS...?

"Web farm" refers to more than one machine running the same ASP.NET
application(s).

If you have a web farm made up of multi-processor machines, can you be
gardening while you're farming...?

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:

Does that apply to dual-core processors which, although only one physical unit, are treated as two
separate processors by the OS...?

Interesting question, to which I don't know the answer.
If there's true separation between the CPU cores, I'd imagine so.

re:

If you have a web farm made up of multi-processor machines, can you be gardening while you're
farming...?

Yes, and that *will* increase your servers' throughputs.

 

[Mark Rae]

re:

Interesting question, to which I don't know the answer.
If there's true separation between the CPU cores, I'd imagine so.

Well, I'm typing this on a machine with an AMD 64-bit dual core chip and, so
far as I can see, WinXP treats it as if it were two completely separate
processors, even to the extent where there are two separate charts in Task
Manager, Performance, CPU usage history...

Device Manager also lists two identical chips...

I'd imagine that ASP.NET gets the number of processors on the machine it's
running on from the OS, not from the hardware directly, so I reckon it will
see a dual-core chip as two separate processors, thereby allowing web
gardening...

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:

Well, I'm typing this on a machine with an AMD 64-bit dual core chip and, so far as I can see,
WinXP treats it as if it were two completely separate processors, even to the extent where there
are two separate charts in Task Manager, Performance, CPU usage history...

Device Manager also lists two identical chips...

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

I've been considering getting an AMD 64-bit dual core chip.

What is (are?) its processor speed(s) ?
Are you happy with its performance ?
What type of video card are you using with it ?
Are sufficient drivers available for peripherals ?
Do 32-bit apps run OK on it ?

That's a lot of questions, so I'll stop... ;-)
Thanks for any insight you can provide.

 

[Mark Rae]

I've been considering getting an AMD 64-bit dual core chip.

What is (are?) its processor speed(s) ?

I think they go from 3800 to 4800:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_13041,00.html

Are you happy with its performance ?
Yes.

What type of video card are you using with it ?

Unfortunately, an nVidia GeForce 6800. I say "unfortunately" because it
doesn't work with Vista - causes BSOD constantly. If nVidia haven't produced
decent drivers by the time Microsoft have patched VS.NET 2005 so that it
will run properly on Vista, I'll have to get another graphics card...

Are sufficient drivers available for peripherals ?

Yes, apart from the above.

Do 32-bit apps run OK on it ?

Yes, but they run even better on a 64-bit OS. 64-bit SQL Server on 64-bit
WinXP positively flies along...