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  1. #1
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    curious, how many concurrent users could this server host (details inside)

    I have no experience with servers so I want to know very roughly how powerful the following server would be:

    DELL POWEREDGE 1850 DUAL 2.8G XEON 1GB Ram


    so very roughly estimate how many concurrent users could the following server handle if it was hosting webhostingtalk.com.

    Thanks for any insight.

  2. #2
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    That machine couldn't host Webhostingtalk.com in all honesty. Now if you are talking about just hosting a vbulletin forum with minor mods, there really is no way to know exactly. It depends on many things, but I would guess around 300 or so most likely.
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  3. #3
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    How come vbulletin needs this much power? Most other boards on that machine would be able to handle way more users, I think?
    Last edited by Xandrios; 07-13-2005 at 03:57 PM.

  4. #4
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    vbulletin is doin just nice.

    U just dont have idea how much power u really need to host so much requests in same time.

    I have one forum (client forum ofcourse) - always around 300+ user's doin something.

    It's set on single CPU for WWW and dual opteron (2 GB memory 244 opterons inside - and also it's on 64 BIT - BSD) for mysql.

    And even so - client will soon need to upgrade that SINGLE server what is doin just WWW thing, cause at peek's (when there is 550+ active users) - it's not enough.

    So much for that.

    N.

  5. #5
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    Vbulletin will often times significantly out perform Invision or phpBB or smf.

    phpBB is quite possibly the worst performer out of the bunch.

  6. #6
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    Actually, phpBB can be fine if you don't install any mods. But, if you do, it can be quite bad. vBulletin is definately very nicely coded, however.

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  7. #7
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    It's not a problem in the forum software, it's just that on a database that busy there is going to be a lot of processing required no matter what.
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  8. #8
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    Originally posted by justadollarhostin
    It's not a problem in the forum software, it's just that on a database that busy there is going to be a lot of processing required no matter what.

    often times it is the forum software, performance on the database is particularly poor due to poor table / database design, poor query design, poor indexing, etc.

  9. #9
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    Originally posted by TulipSystems
    often times it is the forum software, performance on the database is particularly poor due to poor table / database design, poor query design, poor indexing, etc.
    Which I will most certainly agree with. A 5 line script could bring the most powerful machine down to it's knees. But when you're talking about concurrent users on a forum, in this case vB, you are going to suffer from running it all on one machine.

    IIRC Inet uses a 5 machine cluster from RackSpace to host WHT and there other sites, and even then they can get exteremly bogged down.

    It's really a matter of trial and error to figure out just how much you can squeeze out of that machine, but after about 300 users on at one time with MySQL and Apache both on the same machine, I would ventrue that you are going to get some slowdowns.

    The more mods you add to vB the slower it is going to get. This is especially true when they have to execute extra queries on each page load.
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  10. #10
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    Originally posted by justadollarhostin
    Which I will most certainly agree with. A 5 line script could bring the most powerful machine down to it's knees. But when you're talking about concurrent users on a forum, in this case vB, you are going to suffer from running it all on one machine.

    IIRC Inet uses a 5 machine cluster from RackSpace to host WHT and there other sites, and even then they can get exteremly bogged down.

    It's really a matter of trial and error to figure out just how much you can squeeze out of that machine, but after about 300 users on at one time with MySQL and Apache both on the same machine, I would ventrue that you are going to get some slowdowns.

    The more mods you add to vB the slower it is going to get. This is especially true when they have to execute extra queries on each page load.
    at that point your bottle necks are most likely three things, probably in this order too

    memory, disk (access time, since mem is low disk hits are higher), and processor

  11. #11
    Originally posted by TulipSystems
    Vbulletin will often times significantly out perform Invision or phpBB or smf.
    It would be interesting if some independent body did some benchmarks, unfortunatly there aren't any.

    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126331 is an interesting thread though.

  12. #12
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    Originally posted by TulipSystems
    at that point your bottle necks are most likely three things, probably in this order too

    memory, disk (access time, since mem is low disk hits are higher), and processor
    Definitely not always the case. We have a customer running a site now, which he coded himself, which is completely dependant on CPU as he seems to be set on running fewer queries, even though they are much more complex queries... We are trying to get him away from that, but just an example that it's not always as easy as it seems.
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  13. #13
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    ok thanks for the replies. The general concensus was that it could very roughly handle 300 concurrent users.



    Follow up question:


    What if the following server:
    DELL POWEREDGE 1850 DUAL 2.8G XEON 1GB Ram
    was only dedicated to the database then approx how many concurrent users could it hold.
    That is, the only restraint is the database server, you could add other servers wherever you needed, but you couldnt scale the DB anymore.

    I know the answers are highly speculative but they help me immensely.

    Thanks for any help.

  14. #14
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    ^^^^ 1 BUMP


    Im asking because Microsoft sql standard has a 4 processor limit.

    I just want to know roughly how much the aboave server could handle if it was solely dedicated to the DB.

    I guess the real question is how much could a quad proc setup of the above handle.

    Thanks

  15. #15
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    If u need it for database - then drop INTEL and go with AMD opterons.

    U will get better fare better results on opterons then on intel for Databases.

    There is test's on http://anandtech.com regarding this, and u can see that sometimes even QUAD intel is not faster then DUAL opteron.

    N.

  16. #16
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    Does it matter if you have a 4 processor limit? IIRC an 8-way server starts to get so expensive, that if you can afford it, you wouldn't be posting here asking


    Windows 2003 Standard also has a 4 CPU limit. I think that limit counts as 2 dual-cores too, so if you need a 4 dual-core CPU setup, you'll be looking at $4000 just to start.


    Also, the figures you've got so far are for MySQL, not SQLServer which is a different beast altogether. I worked on a system that runs a major UK building society, and they have 12000 users on a (admittedly large Compaq, but not an ES7000 for example) database server using a web-based application. (the trick is to use lots of stored procedures and no connection state whatsoever). That was with SQLServer, a good schema and indexing.

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