[Zope] RE: Caching...

[Michael Fraase]

I wasn't going to respond to this, but I can't resist. Comments inline
below.

--
Michael Fraase
ARTS & FARCES LLC
mfraase@farces.com
www.farces.com
PGP Fingerprint:
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> -----Original Message-----
> 
>   This discussion is so pointless...

Pointless to whom? I'm learning a good bit.

> 
>   FYI Google has upwards of 10.000 (thats TEN THOUSAND) linux
>  machines serving as frontends for their service. And although
>  Google's pages are dynamic, they're basically the same script
>  run over and over again with little or no images. So caching is not
>  the only option; its just that I'm sure you dont have Google's
budget.
> 
>   What you're trying to do is asking Zope to DYNAMICALLY generate
>  Squishdot pages (probably full of database accesses and images). But
>  you're doing this on a PC (no hardware specs were specified) running
>  Windows (!) and on a DSL line.

Hardware specs were most certainly provided (P3 850MHz 768MB RAM).

I hate to be put in the position of defending Microsoft, but the OS
didn't fall over. Neither did my DSL connection. Zope did.

As of about 8:00 PM CST today my site has served more than 120,000
pageviews. Not bad, and it's settled down now, but I was having to
restart Zope every hour or so for most of the day.

> 
>   If you try to do something similar with ANY OTHER platform (lets say
>  Apache+PHP+PHPNuke; or IIS+ASP+some forum software or other)
>  you're also going to get into the same kind of problems.

Agreed. But I'm not sure the other options would fall over.

> 
>   If you compound this with the fact that you're also clueless (e.g
running
>  Zope without knowing what -S is for; or, for that matter, running any

>  software without knowing what you're doing), you're in for a lot of
trouble.
>   Please, dont answer "I'm a writer, not a programmer". THAT is
precisely
>  your problem. You want to be able to build rockets without taking a
course
>  in rocket science. Dont misunderstand me; you can still fire rockets
or
>  build amateur rockets; just dont try to reach the moon.

First of all, I never claimed to be cluefull. That's why I came here and
asked the question. But neither am I clueless. The -S switch has been
bothering me for a while. Do a search on zope.org for "command line
switches" nothing. Nothing in any of the Zope documentation that I can
find. Nor in any of the three Zope books currently in print. Even the
Windows-specific doc doesn't say anything about the -S switch.

Being a writer/information architect isn't my problem. Nor is it
relevant to this issue. Get used to it; we're here and we need your
help. But you need our help just as much.

And to use your metaphor, I have no interest in building rockets, only
flying them. Better get used to that too; there are a lot more of us
than there are of you.

> 
>   Here are some tips:
> 
>   - enable caching on Zope

Done and already cited.

>   - change from Windows to Linux

Maybe, but again, Windows didn't fall over--Zope did.

>   - install more RAM on your PC

768Mb is the maximum I can install in what I've got. Should be adequate.
There's no evidence of not having enough memory caused Zope to fail.

>   - get more CPU for your PC

Again, there's no evidence that lack of CPU horsepower caused Zope to
fail.

>   - put Squid in front of your Zope

Excellent advice for Linux users.

>   - fine tune your Zope to use only the necessary command line
switches

So what's -S for? As stated in a previous message the only other
switches I'm using set the web port and the WebDAV port.

>   - pack your Zope database frequently

I do. At least weekly, sometimes daily, today it was every few hours.

>   - stop all the other software that you might have running (i.e.
dedicated
> server)

Zope's all that's really running.

>   - create static versions of the most accessed page(s)

That's a good idea.

>   - you might have a memory leak somewhere; plug it
> 
>   We're running a consumer portal with about 1 million hits per day
using
>  2 frontends (regular PC machines) connected to 1 backend (server PC).
> 
>   C U!
> 
>   -- Mario Valente