*BSD News Article 78932


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From: mwood@indyvax.iupui.edu (Mark H. Wood)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.infosystems.www.misc
Subject: Re: Unix too slow for a Web server?
Message-ID: <R.1996Sep21.083306.26626@indyvax.iupui.edu>
Date: 21 Sep 96 08:33:06 -0500
References: <323ED0BD.222CA97F@pobox.com>
Lines: 28
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:131083 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:27792 comp.infosystems.www.misc:43983

Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.

In article <323ED0BD.222CA97F@pobox.com>, Subhas Roy <subhas@pobox.com> writes:
> A ZDnet article says in the web page
> http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/features/fea1096/sub4.html#jump2
> that Windows NT-based servers run much faster (as much as 13
> times) when client counts are low.
> 
> Is that possible? Anybody wants to comment on the
> article's claim?

Where to begin?

1)	Something Else must be going on.  This is the same sort of jive that
	Unix vendors used to pull on other OSes.  The CPU clock doesn't tick
	faster just because you have one OS or another.  Of course Unix had
	that big I/O block cache, and the others didn't (then).

2)	Is the difference really significant?  If one server responds in 13
	nanoseconds and another in only one, do humans (who respond in seconds
	to milliseconds) really care?

3)	How do the results scale with load?  I mean, do we really care about
	unloaded performance?  Most people are more interested in how response
	varies when load nears capacity (and it seems that Web servers are
	*always* running near or over capacity!)-: .
-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead Systems Programmer    +1 317 274 0749   [@disclaimer@]
Internet:  MWOOD@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU       BITNET:  MWOOD@INDYVAX
Trapped in a world he never made.