Web performance question

[mmaisterrena]

Should A5v8 .A5W pages load faster just by running them trough the A5v9 WebServer?

[NoeticCC]

Re: Web performance question

I guess the difference in speed depends on the content of any page - because V9 has Gzip capabilities, any file where download speed improves with compression will display faster than from an earlier version server...

This page shows the speed improvement through compression on an image-heavy Alpha page: http://www.pipeboost.com/GetReport.a...led_Images.A5w

[Selwyn Rabins]

Re: Web performance question

Should A5v8 .A5W pages load faster just by running them trough the A5v9 WebServer?

In all but the smallest of pages, you should see a meaningful improvement.

However, V9 Platinum also has a lot of Ajax functionilty. While this does require some Xbasic programming, Ajax applications can perform exceptionally well.

See the sample Web app that ships with V9 for a demo.

[Rich Hartnett]

Re: Web performance question

Does this mean that only pages which contain images such as JPEG's will appear to run quicker, or all pagers in general?

I have a tabbed gridlinker application with 8 tables that runs somewhat slow, and I'm wondering if V9 will affect its performance. At the moment, it does not have any images connected with it, although there are plans to add them in the future.

Just wondering if anyone has seen any noticeable difference.

[Selwyn Rabins]

Re: Web performance question

Does this mean that only pages which contain images such as JPEG's will appear to run quicker, or all pagers in general?

I have a tabbed gridlinker application with 8 tables that runs somewhat slow, and I'm wondering if V9 will affect its performance. At the moment, it does not have any images connected with it, although there are plans to add them in the future.

Just wondering if anyone has seen any noticeable difference.

no, all pages will appear to run quicker. a tabbed grid linker is sending a lot of data over the network, so the qzip compression should make a noticeable difference.

of course, if you build the page yourself using xbasic/AJAX you will get a dramatic difference.

[Richard Rabins]

Re: Web performance question

Web applications that employ AJAX techniques are now very popular because of the great responsiveness they give to web/browser based applications. Howerver, programming AJAX applications typically adds a significant level of complexity, skill required and time to the development process. Alpha Five (V9) PLATINUM now comes with an extensive JavaScript library that GREATLY cuts the time and simplifies the development of Web applications that employ AJAX techniques.

Wikipedia info on Ajax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX



Watch Videos Demonstrating AJAX Examples in Alpha Five (v9) PLATINUM.

This first video demonstrates the basic principle behind AJAX programming techniques. It shows how a piece of data can be submitted to a the server and a response can then be sent to the browser to update part of the page. Watch video. https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN...dingBasics.swf
The second video demonstrates how AJAX techniques can be used to validate the data in a form. When the form's Submit button is pressed, data in the form is sent to the callback page and validated. Errors are written back to the page, and are displayed without a page reload. Watch video. https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN...Validation.swf
The third video demonstrates how AJAX techniques are used to implement cascading dropdown boxes. We show a form with a State, City and Customer dropdown box. When the user selects a state, the city dropdown box is dynamically repopulated, and when the user selects a city, the customer dropdown box is repopulated. When the user selects a customer, the customer information is displayed on the page, where it can be updated and saved. Watch video. https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN...ropDownDBF.swf
Next, we demonstrate how you can use AJAX to implement 'suggestion' lists as the user types into a textbox. We show how, as you type a name into a city field, AJAX callbacks can be used to present a list of cities that start with the characters you have typed. The video also shows filtered suggestions - where the suggestion list is filtered by the value in some other control you set on the page. Watch video. https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN...SuggestDBF.swf This next video shows the same techniques, but this time using SQL Server as the data source for the suggestion list. Watch video. https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN...SuggestSQL.swf

Finally we demonstrate a tutorial page that is intended to highlight the basic building blocks of an AJAX application. Several of the functions in the Alpha Five Ajax Form library are discussed. Watch video - part 1 https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN..._Tutorial1.swf Watch video - part 2 https://www.alphasoftware.com/VideoN..._Tutorial2.swf

[mmaisterrena]

Re: Web performance question

Please consider making a tutorial of how this pages can be done inside alpha from start to end (not just a explanation of the function used to make this).

(since my predictions for v9 where correct here is another one for v10)
I predict that version 10 will incorporate Ajax directly to grids and dialogs so that coding or scripting wont be necessary.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Web performance question

Does this mean that only pages which contain images such as JPEG's will appear to run quicker, or all pagers in general?

I beleive it's just that the example provided has images in it (in order to make it a large page data-wise), rather than this only being the case for image-heavy pages.

[Lenny Forziati]

Re: Web performance question

Rich, to add to what Selwyn said about your question, while there are a number of performance improvements in the Platinum server, what they have in common is that they allow the connection between browser and the Application Server to be used more efficiently.

For an A5W page such as a gridlinker that contains a fair amount of data, the new gzip compression allows for less data to have to travel back to the browser.

For an A5W page that has multiple images, style sheets and other related files, the persistent connections and pipelining allow those requests to be sent to the server faster and get a response that much sooner.

On a really fast local network where the server is essentially right next to the browser, these changes would be less significant because the request and response transport time is already quite small. But in a more widely deployed application, these changes make a noticeable impact. Your application used in patrol cars over wireless is a shining example of where these changes will makes a real impact.

-Lenny

[Rich Hartnett]

Re: Web performance question

Lenny that's great, and I plan to try it out today, to see if there is really any noticeable impact.

Incidentally, am I required to re-publish all of the v8 files in v9 in order for the increased speed to take place, or no?

[NoeticCC]

Re: Web performance question

In all but the smallest of pages, you should see a meaningful improvement.

However, V9 Platinum also has a lot of Ajax functionilty. While this does require some Xbasic programming, Ajax applications can perform exceptionally well.

See the sample Web app that ships with V9 for a demo.

I am not certain but I don't think the latest build includes these yet...

[Lenny Forziati]

Re: Web performance question

Incidentally, am I required to re-publish all of the v8 files in v9 in order for the increased speed to take place, or no?

You should not have to republish. Our demo server has the V8 sample pages published to it and that single webroot is used by both a V8 and a V9 server. Each server runs on a different port and allows for a direct comparison of the two versions on the identical system.

V8 sample pages: http://afas.alphasoftware.com:8080/SamplePages/

Exact same pages served by the exact same hardware but by V9 Application Server: http://afas.alphasoftware.com/SamplePages/

[Rich Hartnett]

Re: Web performance question

Thanks Lenny.

[NoeticCC]

Re: Web performance question

You should not have to republish. Our demo server has the V8 sample pages published to it and that single webroot is used by both a V8 and a V9 server. Each server runs on a different port and allows for a direct comparison of the two versions on the identical system.

V8 sample pages: http://afas.alphasoftware.com:8080/SamplePages/

Exact same pages served by the exact same hardware but by V9 Application Server: http://afas.alphasoftware.com/SamplePages/

Thanks that is a great way to compare the performance :)

[MikeC]

Re: Web performance question

Andrea.....or...,

The only places I can notice a speed increase is in the loading of the images (flower area)...actual page loading via miscellaneous links All are slower in the version 9 than the version 8 server....not, I assume, what is supposed to be happening!!

Just noticing is all...doesn't affect me in the least--yet.