Hi Anthony, I'm not sure if you're talking about frontends via cron / tasks, or the newer backend servers. If you're actually talking about frontends, then under the previous scheduler / current pricing, the answer is mixed. If you've got lots of low-latency user-requests / fast task traffic it will spin up new instances for you. If your slow / heavy process are very common relative to your fast-user requests, it may not. Basically, long-running jobs don't get factored into the decision to spin up instances -- hence you wouldn't get more because of them.
If you're on a real backend it shouldn't matter at all. We'll have to see what the new scheduler and pricing changes will bring about. I've heard long running requests will no longer hurt you; however, I don't think they've officially stated how long running tasks will impact the scheduler yet. Robert On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 00:35, Anthony Barry <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm writing an app and one of the requirements is that I need to fetch data > from external servers and some of the files I'm fetching are quite large (up > to 4 - 5MB). So I have written a backend which is scheduled to run by a > cron, however what I'm not sure about is will this backend increase the > latency to a point that the "frontend" app will not scale? I don't need the > backend to scale because it is a controlled fetch, however I do need the > user end of the app to scale. > Although it does state in the docs that a backend will allow you to get > around the request timer, I'm still not sure if a backend with a high > latency will have an impact on the apps scalability. > > App Engine reserves automatic scaling capacity for applications with low > latency, where the application responds to requests in less than one second > > ... > > While a request can take as long as 30 seconds to respond, App Engine is > optimized for applications with short-lived requests, typically those that > take a few hundred milliseconds. An efficient app responds quickly for the > majority of requests. An app that doesn't will not scale well with App > Engine's infrastructure. > > Backends > > allow you to avoid this request timer; with backends, there is no time > limit for generating and returning a request. > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-appengine/-/uux5eYxFeEEJ. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
