Is there a limit to the number of users in Alpha Anywhere Security

[6kids]

Is there a limit to the number users that can be added?

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

Not that I'm aware of. You could have 1000's of users listed.

[Steve Wood]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

I have asked the question before, and the answer I got was "no limit."

[Keith Hubert]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

My side question would be, could Alpha Anywhere handle the "no limit" number of users logging in at the same time?

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

My side question would be, could Alpha Anywhere handle the "no limit" number of users logging in at the same time?

Well, yes, that is the question isn't it, Keith? But actually, I have been surprised by some reports by users hosting relatively large numbers of end-users even on a single instance of the WAS. One fellow said he runs 300 simultaneous users all-day long in his company on a single instance of the WAS. I do believe his hardware was quite robust.

[Steve Workings]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

Keith - you could ask this question about any web server - Alpha Anywhere or any other. The answer's about the same: Users are submitting a request for software and a database to deal with. Any "limit" about how much can be handled within any chosen second of the day is driven by the hardware and related facilities. Not picking on you Keith, but I don't understand why we continue to get questions about "can Alpha Anywhere handle xyz?"

[GGandhi]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

unless I totally misunderstood keith question. he has a valid point I thought.
the question refers to, I thought, can the websecurity handle all those permitted users at the same time.
everytime a page or component or report is requested if it needs to go thru the websecurity, can alpha handle that permitted users?, that was the question, I thought.
I could be wrong or it is quite possible that the WAS can handle without any problem.
I was just hoping for an answer regarding websecurity not alpha's capacity to host many users outside of it.

[Steve Wood]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of users in Alpha Anywhere Security

These things are easy to test with a little work on a system like loadimpact.com. You can test for up to a million concurrent users running any script, such as logging in. I am sure if we did this it would be the same as the last time I did such a test, it will max out around 30 concurrent users. "Concurrent" is a fluid number, and it depends on "how concurrent" the user set is and what they are doing. From my observation, the only way 300 can run concurrently is if they are "not all that concurrent".

[Steve Wood]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of users in Alpha Anywhere Security

Here is the results of a quick 1-50 concurrent user test on my alphatogo.com/login.a5w page. This is just hitting the page, not logging in (I'd have to write a script to do that). This is the free test at loadimpact.com.

http://loadimpact.com/load-test/alph...44d4b574dd4d2f

Look at the graph. The green line is the number of users, using the right side scale. The blue line is the number of seconds it takes for the user to get a response from the application. Note that response time is about 2.5 seconds up through about 40 concurrent users, and then it rapidly deteriorates after that, taking 7-10 seconds to respond as the concurrent user count is between 40-50. Their free test only goes to 50 users. So based on this imperfect test, you can calculate how many instances you need to handle X concurrent users. I have done a paid test using a complete login script up through 250 users but that was several years ago and on an 18-instance application.

[JerryBrightbill]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of useres in Alpha Anywhere Security

unless I totally misunderstood keith question. he has a valid point I thought.
the question refers to, I thought, can the websecurity handle all those permitted users at the same time.
everytime a page or component or report is requested if it needs to go thru the websecurity, can alpha handle that permitted users?, that was the question, I thought.
I could be wrong or it is quite possible that the WAS can handle without any problem.
I was just hoping for an answer regarding websecurity not alpha's capacity to host many users outside of it.

The initial login is the only time the security actually accesses the security tables. When a user logs in, certain pieces of data are retrieved and then stored for that user in their session. Subsequent requests use that stored data for security checks, so there is virtually no overhead. The actual security test for any request is very fast (depending on the speed of the server - under 10 ms).

Any limitation on the number of uses working in the system at any given time is not from security.

[GGandhi]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of users in Alpha Anywhere Security

thanks jerry. that was a good useful information.

[compuaid]

Re: Is there a limit to the number of users in Alpha Anywhere Security

I can confirm Steve's findings on an application we've written to allow property tax owners to view their tax bills. The system response time to open the page and pull up a bill jumps from approximately 3 seconds at 28 users to over 17 seconds at 29 users and over 40 seconds at 50 simultaneous users. Thanks Steve for the info on LoadImpact...excellent testing tool. I was able to use the script recorder for Chrome to actually connect to the initial page, open the search and then perform a search for an actual tax bill. They have now taken the free site up to 250 simultaneous test users with up to 5 tests per month.