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How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

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    #16
    Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

    Hi Carol,
    Sorry for the delay replying back.
    Thanks for sharing your solution. It looks like your logic is to distribute users to each port every 2 hours, then try to redirect to least used port and if not end up going to port 91.
    Have you done any metrics on how many users each web server is actually serving in a week or so?

    So far yet, I don't have the need for load balancing, but your method is pretty interesting and can be used as a starting port for a custom load balancing, just need to be sure which rule to be used to actually sending a connection to another port and also do some testing to the redirecting port to see if it is available before redirecting the end user there.

    I am sure that the Alpha Team would like to implement something like this specially if they will be moving to IIS at some point, but I see the importance of having this sort of custom Load Balancing with the same tools we use daily AA.

    Very well done Carol!!!
    Edhy Rijo
    Progytech
    (Computer Consultants)
    The makers of CardTracking.Net
    www.progytech.com

    Comment


      #17
      Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

      Carol,

      I think you'll be pleased with the IIS plugin Alpha is working on but that probably would mean you could have to deal with some deprecated code. I have no idea how well the IIS plugin performs but one thing is for sure; IIS takes care of the whole webserver operation , the plugin is only the "back end" dealing with xbasic, callbacks etc. IIS allows for webfarms, url rewriting (friendly url's) , virtual hosts , extensionless pages etc , etc
      Frank

      Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand

      Comment


        #18
        Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

        I don't know a whole lot about what I'm talking about here, Frank, but my server technician did some experimenting with the IIS version and determined it was still not making use of the multiple cores on our server. I think I've seen some stuff about that in other threads?
        Carol King
        Developer of Custom Homebuilders' Solutions (CHS)
        http://www.CHSBuilderSoftware.com

        Comment


          #19
          Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

          Originally posted by Mkpatil View Post
          The home grown Load Balancer looks awesome. Thanks for sharing it.
          Question: When an user gets redirected to say http://www.ouraddress.com:93/ourloginpage.a5w, does the url show that particular port number (here 93) for the rest of the session for that session in the url?

          Regards!
          Yes
          Carol King
          Developer of Custom Homebuilders' Solutions (CHS)
          http://www.CHSBuilderSoftware.com

          Comment


            #20
            Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

            Thanks.

            Comment


              #21
              Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

              Great info Carol; thanks for sharing.

              Just to clarify, the initial landing page is handled by one of the WAS instances and that instance is not used for anything else other than forwarding the user to another instance for the actual application, correct? So, my question is does the memory usage for the WAS landing page handler instance ever show unbound memory growth or does it ever become unstable?

              If that instance does not show unbound memory growth or instability then I would think there is a particular operation that is causing the memory leak and I wonder if anyone has tried to figure out if it might be due to database stuff (db result sets not released, db connections not released, objects not being freed) that we have some control over in xbasic and might not have done enough to help WAS cleanup memory.

              Comment


                #22
                Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

                We are not having memory leak problems on any app server now. The problem we had for awhile with memory leaks was introduced by Alpha as my tech explained in the document and that issue was finally found by them after we looked at every other possible cause for weeks. But even after the memory problem was fixed by Alpha, the web servers would just stop for no reason that we or Alpha could find. But since we implemented the steps described in the doc, the servers haven't stopped at all for several weeks now. It really seems like too much was happening in one core on our server because Alpha won't spread to different cores on its own.
                Carol King
                Developer of Custom Homebuilders' Solutions (CHS)
                http://www.CHSBuilderSoftware.com

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

                  I neglected to quote the post I was responding to. I have edited this post to include the text from post #18

                  > I don't know a whole lot about what I'm talking about here, Frank, but my server technician did some
                  > experimenting with the IIS version and determined it was still not making use of the multiple cores
                  > on our server. I think I've seen some stuff about that in other threads?

                  I began to reply and while typing the response realized my response would make a good blog post. Here's the blog post How IIS Allows for Better Server Resource Utilization. The blog post describes how a5w pages are processed and also describes a feature in IIS called Web Garden that the Alpha Anywhere Application Server for IIS takes advantage of. In fact, once you read the blog post you'll probably think a Web Garden sounds pretty close to what you implemented with your launch page and server configuration. You'd be right!

                  Moving to the IIS web server will give Alpha developers greater flexibility to solve problems unique to their requirements and use many existing tools to do so.
                  Last edited by Terry Smith; 02-27-2015, 04:44 PM.

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                    #24
                    Re: How We Reached A Stable Environment By Using Multiple Instances of the Web Server

                    One other thing that comes to mind is the use of Amazon Cloudfront as a cdn for all your static content (images, css, js etc); why serve that with your AA server; waste of resources! Check it out at http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/
                    Frank

                    Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand

                    Comment

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