Yeah I now is a broad subject. Here are more facts.

- The Web Application is not developed yet, so it's impossible to se how
much time it takes to complete each transaction.
- The Web Application will be DB intensive, few users entering the main data
(about 100 total), multiple users using it (about 4000 total) to retrieve
data and entering small amounts of data.
- The Web Applicatino WILL NOT be graphics intensive. The ASPs will deliver
just plain HTML with few graphics (JPG/GIF).
- Maximum users expected to be online at the same time: 2000.

What you think of this:
- 3 Web Servers (PIIIx2 / 256MB RAM) using Win2KAS + IIS 5.0 load balancing
the network traffic
- 2 Database Servers (PIIIx2 / 512MB RAM)using Win2KAS + SQL Server 2000 ina
cluster (active-to-pasive) with a SCSI disk array

Is this enough? Should we add more servers or just add memory to the current
ones?

Do somebody knows where I can find real life cases that are similar to this
one?

Thanks in advance.

Cesar Mendoza


-----Mensaje original-----

Yesterday, The Esteemed Cesar Mendoza gathered electrons and wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm trying to determine the number of servers (Win2KAS/IIS5 so we can use
> clusters and load balancing) needed to implement a web application that
will
> serve more or less 4000 clients (total). The aplication will need database
> access all the time and use ASP. How many users a single server can
handle?


Wow, that is a pretty broad subject.  I was using 4 apache servers behind
a Cisco Local Director just for the static web content.  The application
servers were about 30 dual 550 machines with 1/2 gig memory.  The database
was running on an HP machine (big sucker).  The apps were running W2K NT
with Weblogic.  Since you are doing database and the apps need a
connection to the database, you cannot put the apps on a Local Director as
the app needs a sql connection and once you loose that, the connect is
lost.  You can mirror the database if you like.  As for performance
charts, I don't have them since that company is one of the 330 Internet
company in the Silicon Valley this year to go toast.  Since you are
talking 4K clients, are these clients accessing the servers at 1 time?
Or 4K clients all together  That's a pretty big load.

The answer really depends on the application that is running on the NT
machines.  You will need to contact the application people that wrote it
and tweak out their suggestions.  But there is really a  lot more to it.
Like, are your clients accessing from the US, from Europe, from Asia?
That will afffect all your performance.

There is a lot more to this question because not only are you dealing with
the machines, but the application, the network, the client (is it a web
client or a windows client accessing), is it db intensive, network
intensive, or web intensive..

HTH
....and btw, we did test with Weblogic and it was fastest on W2K.  Linux
crashes on Java, slow on Solaris.

--
Eric "emaq" Maquiling

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