John A Bertoglio wrote: > I have had this discussion/argument going with ISC for 6 years. While I am > very fond of CSP, it is not suitable for high-volume, public websites.
What do you mean by 'suitable'? I think it would suit me just fine. What you mean is that the license model is not suitable, just as I said, right? > WebLinkDeveloper, PHP and .NET with a Cache back end are very viable. All of > these methods use their own gateway and session mechanism which makes more > efficient use of Cache licenses. We have several production websites running > WebLink and receive millions of hits per month with a modest license. ISC shouldn't make you jump through the hoop. > The key is not needing full control of a Cache process. If you need to use > $JOB, you are forced into the one-license, one-user model. This is > reasonable, since you are using the full power of a Cache license. Maybe reasonable, maybe not. What if Windows were licensed by concurrent threads? Would that be reasonable too? > The methods above use a pool of licenses which is in keeping with the transient > nature of the web. Not really. The nature of the web is peaks and valleys. You have to pay for whatever peak capacity you want. > Now move this model to the web. The same pool concept is a work. But, since > using the pooled licences no longer requires physical access to a machine. > The software automatically allocates licenses to users on a round-robin > basis. If all the licenses are in use (as above), the user experiences a > delay. If sufficient licenses are deployed, these waits are a few > milliseconds so all is well. If insufficient licenses are available users > wait...or experience a failure. Our PulsePoll.com poll app serves millions > of lines of javascript per day. However, the average connect time for > individual users is virtually unmeasureable. On an NT box, there is not > sufficient resolution of the internal clock to time the connection. That's very nice. Then we add a fifteen minute grace period to each connection and see how well that model works... > ALL other web technologies simply queue the requests and return the user's > data when a license is free. ... > CSP turns this standard methodoloy on its head. Because of the 15 minute > timeout, the system will constantly issue failure messages to users, even > when none of the other licenses are using Cache for anything! The user gets > a message something like: (to paraphrase) "These guys were too cheap to buy > enough database licenses to take your order. Please go away and buy from a > competitor. Thank you." First of all, it doesn't even have the courtesy to say "Please", "Thank you", "Sorry, the InterSystems license model failed", or anything polite. Secondly, that is your interpretation as an expert. Your typical customers know nothing about what the message means. >From your customer's perspective the message actually implies that the customer is at fault, has done something wrong, and may expect the FBI to knock on the door if he dares to try again. > The moral of the story is not to use CSP for public web sites if you ever > expect any serious volume. If your website if featured on the Today Show next Monday and you're using CSP, you are in big trouble. > A 10 ten year old with a few minutes can launch a denial of service > attack that will bring your CSP site to a quick halt, even without > running a script.. So sad. > Until ISC decides they want a piece of this market, > you must used a pooled solution. But ISC is being silly. You are still serving the same data. You just have to use some other product as a middleman. Or you can use something else entirely. Something that may be open source and free of charge. > One caveat: In terms of scaleability, the CSP with a (real) unlimited > license probably has a significant edge over most pooled solutions. Is there such a real license other than in-house in Boston?
