I have been testing and asking about this for a month now and here is what I found. I have a Pentium 133 with 96 MB running RH 6.0, Apache, Zope and whole bunch of Java development applications (it is loaded). It has about 10 development servers on it only one of which is Zope. I have a home page which is the same one as one on a NT 4.0, SQL 6.5 box (not sure about specs but am sure it is high end). I have run queries through 95,000 records, reloaded the home page hundreds of times and run smaller queries over and over again. What I found is that the NT box is only faster when it comes to the big 95K select. I can load the Zope homepage about five times to every once on the NT. The small queries are just as fast. I am moving to a production box for Zope that will be a 300 PII, 256 RAM, 6 GB drive running just Apache (I am thinking proxy pass) and Zope with PostGreSQL. I will be testing all aspects of site when I get it up and running by this weekend and will report back. I guess the answer is, if you have a spare workstation sitting around, you can run Zope on RH but don't even think about throwing SQL 7 and NT on it. More to come, suggestions welcome. JMA

From: Guy Davis <davis@arc.ab.ca> Organization: Alberta Research Council Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:22:18 -0700 To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Zope Server Performance and Scalability

I set up a Zope 2.12 server on a PentiumPro 200 with 64MB running RH6.1 Linux. Currently I am using Apache with pcgi to handle the initial requests and MySQL for Zope's database for bug tracking and other apps.

I have been asked to defend my choice of Linux over WinNT. This server will be used by approximately 50 people who will mostly make use of the document management abilities of Zope and run occasional database queries.

If we assume heavy use from all 50 people, can Zope handle the loads easily? What kind of numbers (hits/second, etc.) can others report to help me back up my claim that it can? I understand that Zope is significantly slower than MS SiteServer, but for our needs is it not more than sufficient?

My next question is the same but for up to 500 users. There is a small possibility that Zope may be used corporate wide rather than just for our local business units. This would likely require more serious hardware? What level? At what point does it become necessary to move to the Zope Enterprise Option?

Also, what has been your experience with Zope's reliability on Linux? Has anyone been in a backup recovery situation? Was it difficult getting Zope working again from a nightly archive?

This is a lot of questions but I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to answer them. -- Guy Davis mailto:davis@arc.ab.ca (403) 210-5334 Alberta Research Council

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OK, OK, I'lll right a How-To. ;^) Guy Davis wrote:

I set up a Zope 2.12 server on a PentiumPro 200 with 64MB running RH6.1 Linux. Currently I am using Apache with pcgi to handle the initial requests and MySQL for Zope's database for bug tracking and other apps.

I have been asked to defend my choice of Linux over WinNT. This server

Perhaps you should redirect with a request to defend the use of NT ;)

will be used by approximately 50 people who will mostly make use of the document management abilities of Zope and run occasional database queries.

If we assume heavy use from all 50 people, can Zope handle the loads easily? What kind of numbers (hits/second, etc.) can others report to help me back up my claim that it can? I understand that Zope is significantly slower than MS SiteServer, but for our needs is it not more than sufficient?

Apples and Oranges. Most 'webserver' benchmarks published tend to vbe nothing more than simple, static pages. That is hardly fair to compare with a dynamic application server. When people insist on comparing, insist they compare the same things.

My next question is the same but for up to 500 users. There is a small possibility that Zope may be used corporate wide rather than just for our local business units. This would likely require more serious hardware? What level? At what point does it become necessary to move to the Zope Enterprise Option?

The PPro should easily handle what you are describing for the 50. For 500, you would definitely want more RAM; the latter would be even more true for NT. I would reccomend not running X on the server (as usual), and if you do, choose a light windowmanager, such as XFCE, iCE, or WindowMaker. The real question should be 'why are the users are hitting the website so much?'. ;) Will you be serving pages in addition to that done by Zope? This would affect your performance scores. If not, I would say don't bother with Apache.

Also, what has been your experience with Zope's reliability on Linux? Has anyone been in a backup recovery situation? Was it difficult getting Zope working again from a nightly archive?

Stability has never been an issue for me. I run Zope on 5 different machines of varying architecture (Intel, PA-RISC, Alpha) and have never had a stability issue, of either Zope or the OS. Zope is a cakewalk to backup and restore. Data.fs files gzip nicely, and bzip2 even better ;) IMO, the issue would be the MySQL server. Personally, I would run it on a seperate machine w/a fast connection between the two if possible. This would be true of any OS. HTH, Bill -- In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks. -- Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father, September 1900