Building a website very soon need a little guidance

[DaveM]

Leaving this kinda blank to hopefully get some unbiased thoughts!

I have a website planned in the VERY near future(1-3 months). It could reach over a 5 million current records with up to 25 images per record and with over 30,000 concurrent users looking up records at up to 100 records each at one time. There could be as many as 10,000 people putting records in at the same time. There will also be banners for advertising. There will be a tie in for paypal on a more limited basis(maybe 170,000 uses per month).

Will be using sql of one version or another and a host provider in the beginning. Later may use a t1 line and a dedicated server system. Everything else is up in the air including the use of alpha.

Suggestions, limits and ideas please?

If asked, I can give a few more details. This is very important to my business and will be a continuing endeavor for many years. A bad decision could make for heavy loses.

[LukeS]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

...
I have a website planned in the VERY near future(1-3 months). It could reach over a 5 million current records with up to 25 images per record and with over 30,000 concurrent users looking up records at up to 100 records each at one time. There could be as many as 10,000 people putting records in at the same time. There will also be banners for advertising. There will be a tie in for paypal on a more limited basis(maybe 170,000 uses per month).

Will be using sql of one version or another and a host provider in the beginning. Later may use a t1 line and a dedicated server system. Everything else is up in the air including the use of alpha.
...

A T1 will not be able to handle that kind of load, I find T1's slow even with one user. A T1 is 1.5Mbits, if you are going to have 30,000 concurrent users with bandwidth intensive operations such as images a T3 will even be too slow, you will probably need an OC12. I do not think you could get by with one dedicated server either with that many active users.

[Steve Wood]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

You won't be able to do it with Alpha at all. Alpha itself will be the bottleneck, not the database. Or, you would run out of money scaling Alpha to meet that requirement.

[swest]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

What is the limit that Alpha will handle in terms of users?

[DaveM]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

Thanks Steve. I thought so.

It was my opinion that building such on an alpha server or a windows based platform would hit a limt at or below 10,000 concurrent users.

I think there is stuff out there that will do this.

Any suggestions?

[Steve Wood]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

What is the limit that Alpha will handle in terms of users?

That is a different question and the answer will depend on who you ask, and I don't like answering questions about user limits. But it doesn't matter, it cannot meet the stated requirements. Divide the requirements by 1000 and you are still at the upper end of a single server and core (based on my testing, but others will disagree like I said). At that size, it then depends on how tightly "concurrent" your concurrent users are.

[DaveM]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

As a further:

There will be seven identical(almost) apps with each having it's own domain, but the largest one is what I gave the numbers for. Those numbers could be low, but are definitely on the low side if anything.

[DaveM]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

it then depends on how tightly "concurrent" your concurrent users are.

Just a guess, but maybe 3000 users logging in or getting there within a minute. It is the type of app where people will typically be there for more than 10 minutes and people adding records will be on for more than 30 minutes.

[swest]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

Hmm. I think Alpha 5 should disclose these limits before a user purchases the software.

[DaveM]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

I think Alpha 5 should disclose these limits before a user purchases the software

I am not sure alpha is positive of their limits. It depends on the type of app and where it is placed. In my case, I thought it was too much to ask. I just was hoping someone had some other ideas as well.

[Steve Wood]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

Just a guess, but maybe 3000 users logging in or getting there within a minute. It is the type of app where people will typically be there for more than 10 minutes and people adding records will be on for more than 30 minutes.

This kind of thing is easy to test. Create a sample app with just a login, then build a script at a tester like www.loadimpact.com and hit the site with 25-500 users over a short period. Last time I ran a test like that (V10, over a year ago), response time became unacceptable above 20-30 users (single instance/single core). So if that test is accurate, then that is the limit. I am sure it will be different whenever Alpha runs on IIS.

[swest]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

When is the IIS version suppose to be out?

[madtowng]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

Don't make it sound like a downside of Alpha.
You can bet websites that generate that type of traffic are using clusters of servers,
load balancing, and certainly more than a T1 for connectivity.

I believe like most problems, you can do this, but you have to throw enough money
at it.

[Rida Alhasan]

Response times: number of users <---> number of servers, RAM, GHz ...

This kind of thing is easy to test. Create a sample app with just a login, then build a script at a tester like www.loadimpact.com and hit the site with 25-500 users over a short period. Last time I ran a test like that (V10, over a year ago), response time became unacceptable above 20-30 users (single instance/single core). So if that test is accurate, then that is the limit. I am sure it will be different whenever Alpha runs on IIS.

Hi Steve,
In your opinion, what would be the minimum configuration (and how would it be configured) for a response time of 5 seconds from the moment the user requests login to the moment he is allowed inside the application, for 1000 users trying to login in a 15 minute time frame, which means approximately one user per second.

I'd be grateful to have a "feeling" of what would be necessary in terms of:
- Number of single core servers, with one Alpha Five Server licence per machine
- Speed of servers
- RAM of each server
- Any additional hardware or software, like a dedicated server for load balancing

Since my knowledge in this area is limited (i.e. very small), I have most probably not framed the question accurately: a ballpark figure would be more than enough.


Thank you,
Felix
.

[Steve Wood]

Re: BUilding a website very soon need a little guidance

Someone would have to test it out. Some things have changed since my last test in V10. V11 is supposed to automatically shift load between cores, although I have not seen this in action. I don't know if that removes the requirement for a Load Balancer or not. A bunch of stuff comes in to play when you get up there in user count - the database itself needs to be configured to allow that many users. MySQL is preconfigured for (if I recall from around MySQL v5.1) 200 concurrent users. One per second, assuming the user stuck around for a few minutes, would be many thousands of concurrent users and open database connections.

Also, and I don't mean to be cynical, but each time I hear about aggressive user requirements, it turns out years later the developer/client was off by 1000+%.