[Zope] [Urgent] Zope good for multiprocessor hardware

[Curtis Maloney]

On Thursday 23 November 2000 18:46, Daniel Dittmar wrote:
> I don't think Python (and therefor Zope) will profit from a
> multiprocessor as there is something known as the 'global lock' which
> prevents more than one Python thread to run at a time.
>
> Things look different if you're accessing a database (other than ZODB)
> because a properly written database module will release the lock while
> waiting for a reply. So Zope would use one processor and the database
> the other one(s).
>
> Other possibilities:
>
> - you have lots of static data, then these could be served by Apache
> directly (which would benefit from the additional processor)
>
> - you have some very expensive operations (generating GIFs from data
> etc.). Then you could implement those in a separate server.
>

I would have to agree with this.  We are currently running Zope on a dual 
processor Sparc station.  However, also on that box is MySQL, and Apache.  
So, whilst Zope can only use one CPU, there is still plenty of CPU time for 
the DB and Apache to handle their requests.  I've not done any tests, but I 
can't see how this _wouldn't_ be faster than a single CPU.

And, of course, if you happen to be running Linux 2.4 on your system, the 
multi-threaded IP stack will definitely benefit from the extra CPUs.


Have a better one,
	Curtis Maloney