As far as the differences in performance across platforms with Witango v5: It is true that v5 is a vast improvement in all areas, but there is a marked performance benefit with windows as the server platform over the mac, when CPUs and networks are relatively similar. Maybe Phil should chime in here. I spent many hours doing as much real world benchmarking as I could.
Understand, my goal was not to convince anyone that windows was better, but the opposite. I am a mac enthusiast, and wanted the mac to at least be equal, but it wasn't. I am sure it will get there.
Plus the cost is a huge factor. How long do you think the life of the server is? If I buy an XServe, I would want it in use for about 3 years. But technology advances to fast. Let's say I buy 2 XServes a 3K each (cheap), and two witango licenses for 1500ea. That is $9K. You may say only buy one, but I don't think that is a real solution. You must have redundancy in real world deployment, and the only way is with two servers. Now I can have the same setup on Windows 2000 Server for for about 5.5K, which includes rack mount servers, win2k licenses and the Witango licenses.
If we assume that Witango performs the same on both platforms, both setups serve the same amount of requests reliably.
One year passes by, our business has grown, and our servers have many times where they hover at 40 or so concurrent users each. Time to upgrade. On the XServe side, you still have a large investment in hardware, so you buy a third XServe, and another Witango license, and shell out $4500. Problem solved now hovers at about 20 concurrent users at peak. On the windows system, the hardware investment is almost nothing. So I buy a new motherboard and processor for each for about $800 total. Doubling performance. I also hover at 20 now.
I have done this 3 times. The reason I can lower my concurrent connections without adding a server is that the new hardware seriously outperforms the old, and the connections are opened and released much quicker. Witango loves more processor speed. It is not a compiled language, and must read through and interpret all those meta tags on the fly. Obviously, you must also keep your database screaming so that Witango never has to wait on a query.
IMHO, I don't want to have a large investment in hardware that is outdated in a year. My business has been growing at a good rate every year, and the windows setup has worked well for me. I am finally now at the point where I need to add more servers.
Robert.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2003, at 09:34 PM, Chris Millet wrote:
Maybe we're talking about different versions of Mac OS X Server.
I'm using Jaguar and it handles multihoming and multiple SSL certificates
quite nicely. I am somewhat of a novice at both and I found the process to
be simple and straight forward. As for restarting the server, I simply make
all my changes at one time, requiring only a single restart.
The only real hassle I have run into on a regular basis is setting up custom
logs. However, it seems there would be a way to write a script to make
changes to the conf file for me, but then again, I am still relatively new
to this.
As far as performance, I relate to your Ferrari/Lamborghini analogy, but for
Witango and not just Apache. W5 seems so much more powerful than T2K, I
don't know that I could even tell the difference between platform versions,
especially in the real world.
This discussion does make me curious to know about any production sites that
are pushing the envelope with Witango in terms of the kind of traffic that
we are talking about. I would love to know about these sites, and if
possible, know what kind of real-world numbers Witango is handling. This
would seem to help in overcoming objections from clients not familiar with
the platform.
Chris
The apple gui is a great start but leaves a lot behind. Because it only
handles the the basics in the gui, you still have to hit the text
editor. And the apache issue of restarting the whole webserver to
update changes is always an issue, and the most irratating. Also, when
you have to deal with multihoming and multiple secure certificates from
different vendors, you will find IIS completely at home with this level
of complexity, and you will have to delve deep with the text editor,
and archaic ssl command line utilities on apache. I am a programmer,
and proficient in most languages, and am no novice to the apache
syntax, or the command utilities. But my time is valuable to me, so I
chose IIS. If the security issue was not a part of the equation, and
anyone put them side by side in daily use of complex web setups, I am
sure at 4 out 5 dentist would agree.
Robert.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2003, at 11:38 AM, Chris Millet wrote:
While it is true that IIS does have an easier administration interface...
Are you comparing IIS Admin tools to Apache as a stand alone or to Mac
OS X Server which ships with Xserve?
I have also been a long-time WebSTAR guy, and I find administering
Apache only slightly more difficult than WebSTAR — a small price for
the additional power and flexibility. Additionally, Mac OS X Server on
Xserve gives you so many more tools than WebSTAR including what I have
read to be unprecedented hardware/software integration. I don’t know
much about the IIS interface, but the server admin tools seem to be
fairly robust, especially for multiple servers. Plus, like everything
else Apple does, they are extremely intuitive, which, coming from a
graphic background, is important to me. Here’s a like to the GUI if
anyone’s interested. http://www.apple.com/xserve/management.html
Chris
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 <http://www.oakbridge.ca/>
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Johansen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: June 4, 2003 12:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Witango-Talk: Mac OSX performance
Great info,
?
What I want is you supplier on the $700 server. Does this come with the Win2k server license?
Ben Johansen - http://www.pcforge.com Authorized Witango Reseller http://www.pcforge.com/WitangoGoodies.htm Authorized MDaemon Mail Server Reseller http://www.pcforge.com/AltN.htm
-----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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