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Robert, while your post provides some good information, I looked at it
and questioned whether there was a true 'apples' and 'apples' comparison. While
it is true that IIS does have an easier administration interface, it comes at
what I feel is a very heavy cost. Yes WebSTAR is/was a wonderful server mainly
because of its ease-of-use but I believe that prior to your PrimeBase days you
were a Butler user. I don't think that PrimeBase or any other SQL engine has as
easy-to-use interface as Butler did. You made some concessions when you selected
PrimeBase as your current engine. There's no preventing those that select Apache
from making similar concessions.
What I
am trying to say is let's find a closer 'apples' to 'apples' comparison.
Apache/Witango/database on Windows vs. Apache/Witango/database on OS X. One
other thing that I wondered about when I was reading your post is whether the
problem lies with the Apache plug-in vs. the IIS plug-in. I'm not knowledgeable
enough to guess whether there is that possibility but my lack of knowledge would
make me raise the question for those that can to answer.
I want
to steer this back towards the simpler comparison but I will comment on what you
said about costs (and Ben's comment).
Ben
makes a very good point. Yes 'hardware' is much cheaper on the Windows side but
we must factor the total cost of ownership/maintenance into the equation. How
much does the Win2k or Win2003 server licence cost? How much time/money does it
cost to keep up-to-date with the service patches and make sure that they are
properly applied? Perhaps, because you are doing these yourself, you don't
consider that time to have a cost. One very important lesson I received from a
recent self-employment course I took was to factor in what it would cost to have
someone else do the work if you were unable to do it. That will give a truer
value on what your operating costs are.
Hope
this helps,
Steve Smith
Oakbridge
Information Solutions
Office: (519) 624-4388
GTA: (416)
606-3885
Fax: (519) 624-3353
Cell: (416)
606-3885
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.oakbridge.ca
Great
info,
What I want is you
supplier on the $700 server. Does this come with the Win2k server
license?
-----Original
Message-----
From:
Robert Garcia
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 7:38
AM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Witango-Talk: Mac OSX
performance
I have done a lot of research on this. I
am a huge Mac enthusiast, and I wanted to go with OS X, and worked very
heavily with Andre(stone steps) and Witango when they were developing the v5
OS X version.
There were a lot of bugs in the first OS X version, it
would crash under any load, and as they were able to fix those issues, and
make the server more reliable, I noticed the server slowly decreased in
performance. When 054 came out, I did some benchtesting with Mac and Windows
versions going head to head, with the same code, hitting the same database. My
database screams, so I know that is not any bottleneck.
I first did a
bunch of tests to determine the optimum configuration for each platform, and
found that the Windows Witango server needs to stay at 10 threads, and the OS
X version can vary between 10-20, but no more than 20.
It is also very
important to know that the cache was in complete use on both test systems. It
has been my experience that the cache in the Witango Server is the single
biggest performance booster. Use cache, and add memory to your system so that
you use it alot. Also, when cache is off, your server will be less reliable,
especially on OS X. I can cause crashes with the cache off, that I cannot seem
to cause with the cache on (at least in 054).
The windows system was a
AMD XP 2100 Processor (1.7ghz) with 512 megs of ram running 2000 server and
IIS 5. The mac system running on a G4 dual 1ghz with OS X Server 10.2. The
database was on a G4 dual 1ghz, using primebase. I find these systems to be
good for comparison, especially since Witango only uses one processor on the
mac.
I used apache bench to hit the servers, it allows a set number of
hits, and simulates concurrent users.
I first tested the performance of
IIS 5 on the Windows sys, vs Apache 1.3.27 on the Mac. Apache edged out IIS by
about 25%.
I then tested the Witango performance. I tested the servers
repeatedly simulating multiple users. I tested the performance on relatively
simple tml files, with no db access, and I also tested with a image library
taf that pulles info and thumbnails from the db. I found the Windows server to
usaually be around 80% faster. It was a big difference. I have a long text
document of my results, although I have not thoroughly notated it, and is a
little cryptic. I am attaching it, since it is small.
My conclusions
and observations: Basically, use windows to serve. My experience is that
Windows is faster and more reliable as a server platform for Witango. Also,
even if all tests were equal, I think I would still choose windows for the
following reasons:
1. As an administrator of multiple servers, witango,
mail, database, etc, Windows 2000 is much easier to administrate and
administrate remotely. Especially with the free Remote Desktop Connection for
OS X.
2. Hardware is dirt cheap on Windows. You spend a ton on XServe. So
what if the XServe has better hardware redundancy and should be more reliable.
I can set up two load balanced Windows servers for about $700 each, which
gives me complete redundancy, which is even more reliable.
3. I am an old
Webstar guy, and apache is a pain in the ass. I am completely proficient in
it, and deployed with it for months. I hate the fact that you have to restart
the server to accept a change. I hate that if you screw up in syntax, you have
almost no help finding the problem, so you have to make small changes restart
and repeat to be safe. Maybe you type perfectly, I don't. IIS 5 is so easy and
flexible, and Webstar like. It is even better than webstar. It is designed to
make changes on the fly. It is designed to serve from network shares. I love
it. I check security patches once a week, and have never had a security
issue.
IMHO, OS X still has a way to go to be a mature server platform.
Phil might have more to say about that. I do know that Witango had to go
through a lot of extra hoops to work on OS X, and that may be why performance
lacks.
Also, some may argue that Apache is faster, and should be used.
That is like comparing the speed of a Ferrari and a Lamborghini, and you live
in Southern California. You can never get the sucker up to 200 mph anyway, so
go with the one that is funner to drive. That is how it is with Apache and
IIS. They are both much faster than they need to be. They can fill up a T1 on
a pentium 90. The bottleneck is Witango, and your database, not the webserver,
unless you use some server that I don't know of that really tanks.
Hope
this helps. I spent many, many hours on this
question.
Robert. ________________________________________________________________________
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