Re: Large number of users on Informix 5/HP

In article <5k8ag7$kfd@redstone.interpath.net>, "Synectics Inc." <synx@mercury.interpath.com> writes >We have an application utilizing ESQL/C and connecting to an Online 5 db. It >is running on a HP 9000 K400, with 2 processors and 256 MB of memory. I don't >know how much harddisk is available. The application has a small number (5) >of base processes that always connect to the database, and a configurable >number of user-interface processes that also connect to the database. > >The client using this application has been running with around 50 >user-interface processes and therefore a total of 55 connections to the >database. However, they are going to have the need to increase the >number of user-interface connections to the database to 400 (they have a site >license, so we're ignoring legal issues). > 400!!! You will definately need more memory - in my last job we used ONline 7.x and had 80 users on 256Mb of memory using an E45 server. I would use ps -ef/ps -aux to work out how much memory each user requires and try to work out what the memory usage will be with 400 users. Remember some programs e.g. weekly reports will a) only be run occasionally b) only be run by a few users thus do not take the figure for the program which uses the most memory and x8 - think more about how many of each program will be running and when. Also I would move to Online DSA v7.2x, since HP is one of Informix's first tier platforms (up there with Sun and IBM) you should find Online 7.2x is available..this will mean you have no sqlturbo process running - Online 7.x does not need them. You will need to upgrade to ESQL/C 7.2 to do this... >Most of these users are connecting to the HP machine across a 10Mb Ethernet >via telnet. These are curses based interfaces, so we're not talking about >a bunch of X-window traffic. > I'm not sure but if the only traffic is screen I/O for curses then you should be ok. >Can anyone comment on the viability of doing this? Does anyone have a >similarly sized system, and how does the db do from a performance standpoint? >Is this number of connections to the db even a reasonable thing to try, given >the host computer, etc.? > >Any comments are most welcome. Thank you in advance for feedback. > >Mark >---------- >Mark Bordner >mark@synxcti.com -- David Williams