Is 4000 users too high a number for filePro

[Nancy Palmquist]

Lerebours, Jose wrote:

> A question of scalability has come up and I need to
> provide a comprehensive answer.
> 
> The question:
> How would filePro perform in an environment with 4000
> users and what kind of hardware will it need?
> 
> 
> Using my current live scenario of an 120 average users
> and a CPU load of 0.0 to 3.0 (4 generation old server
> w/ 4 500Mhz CPUs & 4GB RAM) I kind of think my existing
> server could handle 1000 users w/out a problem (other
> than HD space).
> 
> That said, 4000 users may not require more than a nicely
> juiced-up 4G Server w/ clustered storage capacity to make
> sure disk space is not an issue.  Of course, there is the
> speed factor (but we know nothing beats filePro on speed).
> 
> Of course, there are factors such as
> 
> - Network bandwidth
> - How is application written
> - Anything else I have no knowledge of
> - Is it sunny or is it raining 
> 
> I can control one but not the others.  I do worry about
> filePro standing up to the task of 4000 concurrent users.
> 
> I like to see the quote - It seems to me that it would
> be wiser to buy fpTech all together.   :)
> 
> Regards;
> 
> 
> Jose Lerebours
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
> 
> 
Jose,

I might consider a design that offers a web-based interface to filepro 
for this kind of a system.

This allows the browser on the client computer to collect the data and 
then the submit would actually use filePro with a CGI kind of interface 
for only moments.

Since all 4000 users would not actively issue a submit at the same 
moment a 256 license or smaller might be sufficient.

If you think about it, if a record update process took 1 sec (most of 
mine are less than that.) it would require 256 users to actively write 
the data they are entering during that same second to exceed the limit.

A report on a large file, on a hot machine might take a few minutes, but 
I would still expect the load balance to be well within limits.

Think of it as a web page where the users have to ask for something to 
get the server to react and the time required to react to the request 
would determine how long the user was actually using filePro.

Nancy

-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems	Web Based Training and Consulting	
PHONE: (412) 835-9417		   Web site:  http://www.vss3.com