[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
mabshoff wrote: > > > On Oct 8, 5:48 am, Pierre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Ironically pretty much everything works under Solaris now but the >>> notebook. I think that issue is easy to fix (RAND_MAX related >> incidentally, is it possible to get knoboo to work on solaris instead >> of the notebook ? >> >> (sorry if this question is somewhat besides the point) > > No problem, but I think it could work. The issue right now with the > notebook on Solaris is that the key generation takes forever due to > sucky entropy caused by RANDMAX issues. I can fix that, but I want to > make sure that I do not open a gaping security issue. The way we used to fix this before GNUtls stopped totally sucking at generating keys, was we used openssl to generate keys if it was installed on the system, and if not only then fell back to using GNUtls. -- William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Oct 8, 5:48 am, Pierre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ironically pretty much everything works under Solaris now but the > > notebook. I think that issue is easy to fix (RAND_MAX related > > incidentally, is it possible to get knoboo to work on solaris instead > of the notebook ? > > (sorry if this question is somewhat besides the point) No problem, but I think it could work. The issue right now with the notebook on Solaris is that the key generation takes forever due to sucky entropy caused by RANDMAX issues. I can fix that, but I want to make sure that I do not open a gaping security issue. Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
> Ironically pretty much everything works under Solaris now but the > notebook. I think that issue is easy to fix (RAND_MAX related incidentally, is it possible to get knoboo to work on solaris instead of the notebook ? (sorry if this question is somewhat besides the point) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Mike Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello, > > On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> To sum up the discussion about what makes things slow, is it a >> file-locking bottleneck with the sage server? > > I don't think anyone has done any serious profiling of the notebook so > I think that conclusion is quite a bit premature. One thing that [...] > > --Mike This hits the nail on the head.Mike's right on -- essentially no work at all has gone into any profiling of the notebook. We simply don't know why or what about it is slow or doesn't work well under a heavy load. I could guess, since I'm intimately familiar with the code, but I would likely be wrong. In fact, at present, the *only* "tool" we have for observing this slowness is anecdotal situations that some of us have experienced when teaching -- that's it. Like Michael says, we need good tools for simulating a heavy load, etc. William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Oct 7, 2008, at 13:27 , Mike Hansen wrote: > > Hello, > > On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > wrote: >> To sum up the discussion about what makes things slow, is it a >> file-locking bottleneck with the sage server? > > I don't think anyone has done any serious profiling of the notebook so > I think that conclusion is quite a bit premature. One thing that > might be helpful would be to run the notebook under Solaris with > DTrace. FWIW, you can also use DTrace as well on Mac OS X, 10.5, as well. Justin -- Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon at Large Institute for the Absorption of Federal Funds --- If it weren't for carbon-14, I wouldn't date at all. --- --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Oct 7, 1:27 pm, "Mike Hansen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > To sum up the discussion about what makes things slow, is it a > > file-locking bottleneck with the sage server? > > I don't think anyone has done any serious profiling of the notebook so > I think that conclusion is quite a bit premature. One thing that > might be helpful would be to run the notebook under Solaris with > DTrace. Ironically pretty much everything works under Solaris now but the notebook. I think that issue is easy to fix (RAND_MAX related probably), but the even shorter way to profile here is either using VTune (which is proprietary) or Systemtap (which is free). If we can get Mike's notebook testing code to do some larger number of operations in automated mode we could probably easily determine where the bottlenecks are. > --Mike Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
Hello, On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To sum up the discussion about what makes things slow, is it a > file-locking bottleneck with the sage server? I don't think anyone has done any serious profiling of the notebook so I think that conclusion is quite a bit premature. One thing that might be helpful would be to run the notebook under Solaris with DTrace. --Mike --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
William Stein wrote: > On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:11 AM, kcrisman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> >> >>> To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering >>> the server at once. >>> >> I can confirm this from our experience as well; on a more moderate >> size server even 15-20 at once becomes very problematic. > > One thing I should emphasize is that it's not necessarily a hardware > or bandwith limitation, i.e., in my experience running multiple servers > on different ports on the same hardware allows one to go serve > more users at once. To sum up the discussion about what makes things slow, is it a file-locking bottleneck with the sage server? Thanks, Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Oct 7, 2008, at 3:58 AM, Thierry Dumont wrote: > William Stein a écrit : > >> >> If your hardware is pretty good (which the OP's hardware is), the >> problem is definitely the webserver and notebook interface. >> Running many sage sessions at once gets around this. >> > > ok, if I understand correctly, running "many" servers (listening on > different ports) will make the job. Yep. >> Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same >> data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or >> something), >> then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. >> But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the >> Sage notebook anytime in the near future. >> > > Can you give me some hints? See attached. I'm sure much better could be done, but it's enough to get started. > The notebook servers cannot share the datas? All this means is that if someone creates an account on one server, they can't log into another server. > May be we can have some support to develop something... That would be very good, it certainly is technically possible, just no one's done it yet. - Robert --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- lots_of_notebooks.sage Description: Binary data
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 7:10 AM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Alex Clemesha wrote: > >> We have spend a majority of our effort on Knoboo trying to make >> it a robust and scalable web application (like, for example, the >> 'frontend' is totally decoupled from the backend 'kernel'). >> >> What's missing from Knoboo, and what is so great about the Sage Notebook, >> is all the awesome usability features like @interact, etc. >> I'm optimistic that we will be able to merge both our best attributes >> in due time. >> > > Like others have said, the interact and other features from the sage > notebook are important (important enough that I can't run Knoboo for > what I need). However, I'd *love* to run knoboo as a front end. If > @interact and these other features were added to knoboo and knoboo was Just to add, the interact code we wrote for Sage is GPLv2+ so I think legally it could be included in Knoboo, and socially I am enthusiastic about you doing so. The more code sharing between the Sage and Knoboo projects, the better. William > included as an optional spkg, I'm sure the user base for knoboo would > skyrocket, at least compared to the current user base. My guess is that > can only be really good for knoboo, and the sooner, the better. > > Thanks for all your work on knoboo! > > Jason > > > > > > -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
Alex Clemesha wrote: > We have spend a majority of our effort on Knoboo trying to make > it a robust and scalable web application (like, for example, the > 'frontend' is totally decoupled from the backend 'kernel'). > > What's missing from Knoboo, and what is so great about the Sage Notebook, > is all the awesome usability features like @interact, etc. > I'm optimistic that we will be able to merge both our best attributes > in due time. > Like others have said, the interact and other features from the sage notebook are important (important enough that I can't run Knoboo for what I need). However, I'd *love* to run knoboo as a front end. If @interact and these other features were added to knoboo and knoboo was included as an optional spkg, I'm sure the user base for knoboo would skyrocket, at least compared to the current user base. My guess is that can only be really good for knoboo, and the sooner, the better. Thanks for all your work on knoboo! Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
William Stein a écrit : > > If your hardware is pretty good (which the OP's hardware is), the > problem is definitely the webserver and notebook interface. > Running many sage sessions at once gets around this. > ok, if I understand correctly, running "many" servers (listening on different ports) will make the job. > Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same > data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or something), > then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. > But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the > Sage notebook anytime in the near future. > Can you give me some hints? The notebook servers cannot share the datas? May be we can have some support to develop something... Yours t.d. > begin:vcard fn:Thierry Dumont n:Dumont;Thierry org;quoted-printable:CNRS - Universit=C3=A9 Lyon 1. / Villeurbanne France.;Institut Camille Jordan adr:;;43 Bd du 11 Novembre;Villeurbanne Cedex;F;69621;France email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title;quoted-printable:Ing=C3=A9nieur de Recherche/Research Ingineer tel;work:(33) 4 72 44 85 23 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/~tdumont version:2.1 end:vcard smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > William Stein wrote: >> 2008/10/6 Thierry Dumont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >>> I would like to know if someone as used Sage with undergraduate >>> students. My question is mainly a question about the material which >>> would be necessary. >>> >>> We are currently building a project (this means: asking for money, doing >>> a lot a bureaucracy and so on) on Sage in my University: the idea is to >>> start the replacement of the current commercial system (Maple) by Sage. >>> Nowadays, students use Maple on a network of Windows machines. We would >>> like to make a large Sage server so that all the students use the web >>> interface. >>> >>> I can add to Sage an identification on the ldap server (actually active >>> directory) of the University, and Sage accounts will be created >>> automatically. >>> >>> The more difficult question for us is: which machine? One can expect to >>> have about 200 students using Sage at the same time, with large >> >> There is no way you can have 200 students all using exactly one >> sage notebook server on the same port *at the same time* and >> have it feel snappy still. I've done classes with 30 people at once >> and that worked OK -- the server I used was sage.math (16 1.8Ghz >> opterons from 2005). If you ran say 6 different servers, even on the >> same hardware, at once, that would probably work fairly well. >> Probably using two of the 8-core 32GB of RAM machines you list >> below, with say three sage notebook servers on each, would work >> reasonably well. >> >> If you publish the relevant notebooks the students need, and >> just redirect students from some master login page to one of those >> six distinct servers, this could work pretty well. >> >>> subgroups of students doing the same thing at the same time. Ok, as it >>> is undergraduate students, they will not make very large computations... >>> But what about the "scalability" of Sage, of the web server? >> >> To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering >> the server at once. >> >>> We are currently looking at machines with 2x4 core processors, 32 gb of >>> RAM, 2x450 Gb of disk (raid1). Larger machines exists, but are extremely >>> expensive. We can ask for two machines like this. >>> >>> As anyone some experience in this domain? >> >> sagenb.org obviously has a lot of usage. >> I basically started it as a server from scratch >> 1 month ago, and over 750 people created >> accounts on it during the last month. > > > Can anyone comment on the possibility of running 25-30 sage sessions > from the command line on a modest configuration? In other words, is the > problem in running 25-30 sage processes, or is the bottleneck in the > webserver and notebook interface? If your hardware is pretty good (which the OP's hardware is), the problem is definitely the webserver and notebook interface. Running many sage sessions at once gets around this. Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or something), then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the Sage notebook anytime in the near future. > Based on your comment about running several servers on the same box, it > seems that the problem is that the web server cannot handle very many > concurrent connections. In that case, the recent query about using sage > with mod_python or some other higher performance solution might be worth > looking at again. Maybe it would be William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Timothy Clemans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ondrej, > > Did you have to stop supporting Sage altogether or just the Sage Notebook? Not sure what you mean by supporting. I was running the sage notebook from Sage so that anyone can log into it, just like sagenb.org. But my virtualserver doesn't have enough memory for that. So now I only run knoboo notebook: http://knoboo.sympy.org/ This seems to work well. And I just don't run Sage permanently on that server. I miss the features from the Sage notebook though. Ondrej --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
Ondrej, Did you have to stop supporting Sage altogether or just the Sage Notebook? On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Ondrej Certik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:49 PM, Alex Clemesha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hi, >> >>> >>> Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same >>> data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or something), >>> then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. >>> But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the >>> Sage notebook anytime in the near future. >> >> As we discussed with William, but for others who are interested, >> we have been designing Knoboo to use a centralized database >> via SQLAlchemy, and it is something that is definitely worth doing. >> >> The two files here describe our entire data scheme: >> http://trac.knoboo.com/browser/trunk/knoboo/knoboo/database/ >> and with SQLAlchemy you can use SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc >> as the centralized database behind the scenes. >> >>> >>> > Based on your comment about running several servers on the same box, it >>> > seems that the problem is that the web server cannot handle very many >>> > concurrent connections. In that case, the recent query about using sage >>> > with mod_python or some other higher performance solution might be worth >>> > looking at again. >> >> The web server (Twisted) can certainly handle hundreds to thousands of >> connections, read more about that here: twistedmatrix.com, especially >> see all the 'big' companies using Twisted. >> >> In a web application like the notebook, the webserver should be doing >> only 2 main things: 1) passing snippets of code to another process (the >> 'kernel') >> that actually evaluates the code, and 2) talking to a database to preserve >> the input and output (among other less frequent data access actions). >> >> We have spend a majority of our effort on Knoboo trying to make >> it a robust and scalable web application (like, for example, the >> 'frontend' is totally decoupled from the backend 'kernel'). >> >> What's missing from Knoboo, and what is so great about the Sage Notebook, >> is all the awesome usability features like @interact, etc. >> I'm optimistic that we will be able to merge both our best attributes >> in due time. > > Indeed, that'd be awesome. Knoboo is lightweight. I had to stop > running Sage on my virtual server (with only about 360MB of virtual > ram) because it was eating several hundreds of megabytes of memory. > Knoboo is running just fine. > > Ondrej > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:49 PM, Alex Clemesha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > >> >> Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same >> data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or something), >> then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. >> But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the >> Sage notebook anytime in the near future. > > As we discussed with William, but for others who are interested, > we have been designing Knoboo to use a centralized database > via SQLAlchemy, and it is something that is definitely worth doing. > > The two files here describe our entire data scheme: > http://trac.knoboo.com/browser/trunk/knoboo/knoboo/database/ > and with SQLAlchemy you can use SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc > as the centralized database behind the scenes. > >> >> > Based on your comment about running several servers on the same box, it >> > seems that the problem is that the web server cannot handle very many >> > concurrent connections. In that case, the recent query about using sage >> > with mod_python or some other higher performance solution might be worth >> > looking at again. > > The web server (Twisted) can certainly handle hundreds to thousands of > connections, read more about that here: twistedmatrix.com, especially > see all the 'big' companies using Twisted. > > In a web application like the notebook, the webserver should be doing > only 2 main things: 1) passing snippets of code to another process (the > 'kernel') > that actually evaluates the code, and 2) talking to a database to preserve > the input and output (among other less frequent data access actions). > > We have spend a majority of our effort on Knoboo trying to make > it a robust and scalable web application (like, for example, the > 'frontend' is totally decoupled from the backend 'kernel'). > > What's missing from Knoboo, and what is so great about the Sage Notebook, > is all the awesome usability features like @interact, etc. > I'm optimistic that we will be able to merge both our best attributes > in due time. Indeed, that'd be awesome. Knoboo is lightweight. I had to stop running Sage on my virtual server (with only about 360MB of virtual ram) because it was eating several hundreds of megabytes of memory. Knoboo is running just fine. Ondrej --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
Hi, > Note -- if the notebook servers all operated on the same > data (via a central database or files on the filesystem or something), > then one could have the best of both worlds... I guess. > But I doubt I'm putting another month of my life into the > Sage notebook anytime in the near future. As we discussed with William, but for others who are interested, we have been designing Knoboo to use a centralized database via SQLAlchemy, and it is something that is definitely worth doing. The two files here describe our entire data scheme: http://trac.knoboo.com/browser/trunk/knoboo/knoboo/database/ and with SQLAlchemy you can use SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc as the centralized database behind the scenes. > > > > Based on your comment about running several servers on the same box, it > > seems that the problem is that the web server cannot handle very many > > concurrent connections. In that case, the recent query about using sage > > with mod_python or some other higher performance solution might be worth > > looking at again. > The web server (Twisted) can certainly handle hundreds to thousands of connections, read more about that here: twistedmatrix.com, especially see all the 'big' companies using Twisted. In a web application like the notebook, the webserver should be doing only 2 main things: 1) passing snippets of code to another process (the 'kernel') that actually evaluates the code, and 2) talking to a database to preserve the input and output (among other less frequent data access actions). We have spend a majority of our effort on Knoboo trying to make it a robust and scalable web application (like, for example, the 'frontend' is totally decoupled from the backend 'kernel'). What's missing from Knoboo, and what is so great about the Sage Notebook, is all the awesome usability features like @interact, etc. I'm optimistic that we will be able to merge both our best attributes in due time. -Alex -- Alex Clemesha clemesha.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:11 AM, kcrisman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > >> To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering >> the server at once. >> > > I can confirm this from our experience as well; on a more moderate > size server even 15-20 at once becomes very problematic. One thing I should emphasize is that it's not necessarily a hardware or bandwith limitation, i.e., in my experience running multiple servers on different ports on the same hardware allows one to go serve more users at once. William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Oct 6, 2008, at 10:21 AM, Jason Grout wrote: > William Stein wrote: >> 2008/10/6 Thierry Dumont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >>> I would like to know if someone as used Sage with undergraduate >>> students. My question is mainly a question about the material which >>> would be necessary. >>> >>> We are currently building a project (this means: asking for >>> money, doing >>> a lot a bureaucracy and so on) on Sage in my University: the idea >>> is to >>> start the replacement of the current commercial system (Maple) >>> by Sage. >>> Nowadays, students use Maple on a network of Windows machines. >>> We would >>> like to make a large Sage server so that all the students use the >>> web >>> interface. >>> >>> I can add to Sage an identification on the ldap server (actually >>> active >>> directory) of the University, and Sage accounts will be created >>> automatically. >>> >>> The more difficult question for us is: which machine? One can >>> expect to >>> have about 200 students using Sage at the same time, with large >> >> There is no way you can have 200 students all using exactly one >> sage notebook server on the same port *at the same time* and >> have it feel snappy still. I've done classes with 30 people at once >> and that worked OK -- the server I used was sage.math (16 1.8Ghz >> opterons from 2005). If you ran say 6 different servers, even on the >> same hardware, at once, that would probably work fairly well. >> Probably using two of the 8-core 32GB of RAM machines you list >> below, with say three sage notebook servers on each, would work >> reasonably well. >> >> If you publish the relevant notebooks the students need, and >> just redirect students from some master login page to one of those >> six distinct servers, this could work pretty well. >> >>> subgroups of students doing the same thing at the same time. Ok, >>> as it >>> is undergraduate students, they will not make very large >>> computations... >>> But what about the "scalability" of Sage, of the web server? >> >> To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all >> hammering >> the server at once. >> >>> We are currently looking at machines with 2x4 core processors, 32 >>> gb of >>> RAM, 2x450 Gb of disk (raid1). Larger machines exists, but are >>> extremely >>> expensive. We can ask for two machines like this. >>> >>> As anyone some experience in this domain? >> >> sagenb.org obviously has a lot of usage. >> I basically started it as a server from scratch >> 1 month ago, and over 750 people created >> accounts on it during the last month. > > > Can anyone comment on the possibility of running 25-30 sage sessions > from the command line on a modest configuration? In other words, > is the > problem in running 25-30 sage processes, or is the bottleneck in the > webserver and notebook interface? Yep, I remember someone a while back was going to convert the interface to use a database backend to make it scale better, but I don't think it ever got finished. As a workaround, you could start up several notebooks at once and assign 20 or so students per port, which should work fine. - Robert --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
William Stein wrote: > 2008/10/6 Thierry Dumont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> I would like to know if someone as used Sage with undergraduate >> students. My question is mainly a question about the material which >> would be necessary. >> >> We are currently building a project (this means: asking for money, doing >> a lot a bureaucracy and so on) on Sage in my University: the idea is to >> start the replacement of the current commercial system (Maple) by Sage. >> Nowadays, students use Maple on a network of Windows machines. We would >> like to make a large Sage server so that all the students use the web >> interface. >> >> I can add to Sage an identification on the ldap server (actually active >> directory) of the University, and Sage accounts will be created >> automatically. >> >> The more difficult question for us is: which machine? One can expect to >> have about 200 students using Sage at the same time, with large > > There is no way you can have 200 students all using exactly one > sage notebook server on the same port *at the same time* and > have it feel snappy still. I've done classes with 30 people at once > and that worked OK -- the server I used was sage.math (16 1.8Ghz > opterons from 2005). If you ran say 6 different servers, even on the > same hardware, at once, that would probably work fairly well. > Probably using two of the 8-core 32GB of RAM machines you list > below, with say three sage notebook servers on each, would work > reasonably well. > > If you publish the relevant notebooks the students need, and > just redirect students from some master login page to one of those > six distinct servers, this could work pretty well. > >> subgroups of students doing the same thing at the same time. Ok, as it >> is undergraduate students, they will not make very large computations... >> But what about the "scalability" of Sage, of the web server? > > To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering > the server at once. > >> We are currently looking at machines with 2x4 core processors, 32 gb of >> RAM, 2x450 Gb of disk (raid1). Larger machines exists, but are extremely >> expensive. We can ask for two machines like this. >> >> As anyone some experience in this domain? > > sagenb.org obviously has a lot of usage. > I basically started it as a server from scratch > 1 month ago, and over 750 people created > accounts on it during the last month. Can anyone comment on the possibility of running 25-30 sage sessions from the command line on a modest configuration? In other words, is the problem in running 25-30 sage processes, or is the bottleneck in the webserver and notebook interface? Based on your comment about running several servers on the same box, it seems that the problem is that the web server cannot handle very many concurrent connections. In that case, the recent query about using sage with mod_python or some other higher performance solution might be worth looking at again. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
> To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering > the server at once. > I can confirm this from our experience as well; on a more moderate size server even 15-20 at once becomes very problematic. - kcrisman --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
2008/10/6 Thierry Dumont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > I would like to know if someone as used Sage with undergraduate > students. My question is mainly a question about the material which > would be necessary. > > We are currently building a project (this means: asking for money, doing > a lot a bureaucracy and so on) on Sage in my University: the idea is to > start the replacement of the current commercial system (Maple) by Sage. > Nowadays, students use Maple on a network of Windows machines. We would > like to make a large Sage server so that all the students use the web > interface. > > I can add to Sage an identification on the ldap server (actually active > directory) of the University, and Sage accounts will be created > automatically. > > The more difficult question for us is: which machine? One can expect to > have about 200 students using Sage at the same time, with large There is no way you can have 200 students all using exactly one sage notebook server on the same port *at the same time* and have it feel snappy still. I've done classes with 30 people at once and that worked OK -- the server I used was sage.math (16 1.8Ghz opterons from 2005). If you ran say 6 different servers, even on the same hardware, at once, that would probably work fairly well. Probably using two of the 8-core 32GB of RAM machines you list below, with say three sage notebook servers on each, would work reasonably well. If you publish the relevant notebooks the students need, and just redirect students from some master login page to one of those six distinct servers, this could work pretty well. > subgroups of students doing the same thing at the same time. Ok, as it > is undergraduate students, they will not make very large computations... > But what about the "scalability" of Sage, of the web server? To emphasize again, I doubt it scales to more than 30 users all hammering the server at once. > We are currently looking at machines with 2x4 core processors, 32 gb of > RAM, 2x450 Gb of disk (raid1). Larger machines exists, but are extremely > expensive. We can ask for two machines like this. > > As anyone some experience in this domain? sagenb.org obviously has a lot of usage. I basically started it as a server from scratch 1 month ago, and over 750 people created accounts on it during the last month. -- William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-support] Re: Using Sage with a large number of undergraduate students.
On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 at 09:16AM +0200, Thierry Dumont wrote: > I would like to know if someone as used Sage with undergraduate > students. My question is mainly a question about the material which > would be necessary. > > We are currently building a project (this means: asking for money, > doing a lot a bureaucracy and so on) on Sage in my University: the > idea is to start the replacement of the current commercial system > (Maple) by Sage. Nowadays, students use Maple on a network of Windows > machines. We would like to make a large Sage server so that all the > students use the web interface. I don't have any experience with the above, although I'm guessing the sagenb.org machine deals with similar loads. I definitely want to hear about your experiences, as I have distant plans for doing the same thing at my university. My own plan is to run a server on a powerful personal machine and let students create their own accounts, and when they start complaining that it's too slow, pass their complaints on and ask for a better server. :) Dan -- --- Dan Drake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - KAIST Department of Mathematical Sciences --- http://mathsci.kaist.ac.kr/~drake signature.asc Description: Digital signature
