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Can .NET Really Scale?
swordfish asks: "Does anyone have first hand experience with scaling .NET to support 100+ concurrent requests on a decent 2-4 CPU box with web services? I'm not talking a cluster of 10 dual CPU systems, but a single system. the obvious answer is 'buy more systems', but what if your customer says I only have 20K budgeted for the year. No matter what Slashdot readers say about buying more boxes, try telling that to your client, who can't afford anything more. I'm sure some of you will think, 'what are you smoking?' But the reality of current economics means 50K on a server for small companies is a huge investment. One could argue 5 cheap systems for 3K each could support that kind of load, but I haven't seen it, so inquiring minds want to know!"
"Ok, I've heard from different people as to whether or not .NET scales well and I've been working with it for the last 7 months. So far from what I can tell it's very tough to scale for a couple of different reasons.
- currently there isn't a mature messaging server and MSMQ is not appropriate for high load messaging platform.
- SOAP is too damn heavy weight to scale well beyond 60 concurrent requests for a single CPU 3ghz system.
- SQL Server doesn't support C# triggers or a way to embed C# applications within the database
- The through put of SQL Server is still around 200 concurrent requests for a single or dual CPU box. I've read the posts about Transaction Processing Council, but get real, who can afford to spend 6 million on a 64 CPU box?
- the clients we target are small-ish, so they can't spend more than 30-50K on a server. so where does that leave you in terms of scalability
- I've been been running benchmarks with dynamic code that does quite a bit of reflection and the performance doesn't impress me.
- I've also compared the performance of a static ASP/HTML page to webservice page and the throughput goes from 150-200 to about 10-20 on a 2.4-2.6Ghz system
- to get good through put with SQL Server you have to use async calls, but what if you have to do sync calls? From what I've seen the performance isn't great (it's ok) and I don't like the idea of setting up partitions. Sure, you can put mirrored raid on all the DB servers, but that doesn't help me if a partition goes down and the data is no longer available.
- I asked a MS SQL Server DBA about real-time replication across multiple servers and his remark was "it doesn't work, don't use it."
This entire story is lacking units.. I am so confused, it is like this...
"I bought a 400 car from my dealer, who said it could go 0-1200 in 57, but I talked to an auto mechanic and he said that the rpm throttled at 4.5 billion, so I don't know if I should get a turbo charger which would at least boost the speed to 1295!!"
If you are talking about 100 concurrent request per second: Any DB worth its salt should handle that IFF the database queries aren't too complex. If they are, your schemas suck. This is doubly true on a 3 GHz machine.
2. SOAP is too damn heavy weight to scale well beyond 60 concurrent requests for a single CPU 3ghz system.
.NET specifically, but just SOAP in general. Make sure you separate out the platform from the product. Saying web services with SOAP won't work is a long way away from saying .NET doesn't scale.
.NET languages, but that's rarely going to be a way to make your system run faster and scale more. Plus, I'm confused - what's your alternative? What database are you going to recommend that allows you to embed C# (C++, whatever) programs in the database itself?
.NET question, it's an SQL question.
.NET, or just a particular product. You might go with .NET and not use MS SQL Server, for that matter.
It doesn't sound like you're talking about
3. SQL Server doesn't support C# triggers or a way to embed C# applications within the database
Embedding applications in the database violates basic scaling principals: you need to separate out into n-tier, right? You don't want the database server doing anything but serving databases. Now, having said that, Yukon (the next version of MS SQL) will indeed let you do certain things in the database with
9. I asked a MS SQL Server DBA about real-time replication across multiple servers and his remark was "it doesn't work, don't use it."
Sounds like it's time to get a more informed consultant who can demonstrate failure or success beyond a throwaway line. I'm not saying replication does or doesn't work, but you can't base your enterprise plans on a single line from a single guy - let alone strangers like me on Slashdot. Furthermore, this isn't a
It's easy to make big decisions if you break them up into a series of smaller ones. Look at each of your questions and decide if it pertains to
What's your damage, Heather?
People in SMALL business do not want a system which requires them to hire someone to constantly keep tabs on it.
What?#$#@ I don't care who this "SMALL" business may be, but if you put a server on the internet, and plan on not having someone to "keep tabs on it", please, get off of the f-ing internet. It's that type of mentality that yields the servers out there that STILL are spreading Code Red and Nimbda, because nobody has kept tabs on these infected servers in years.
You're bound to get lots of responses of how to scale the system up. I'll focus on scaling the requirements down.
Unless the transactions are really long, "100+ concurrent requests" as a sustained rate is a lot of activity for a small business. So, that begs questions:
-- What percentage of these Web service requests are read-only "query" style, and can you use application-aware caching to return results out of RAM instead of having to hit disk for each one?
-- What is the client to this application, and can there be ways to help induce a smoother load from them (e.g., discount rates if the application is used in off hours or on weekends)? Or is the 100+ concurrent requests going on 24x7?
-- Do all the requests have to be filled by the server, or can you blend in some P2P concepts so the clients can absorb some of the load?
-- Can you increase the amount of data handled per transaction (perhaps by switching to document-style SOAP or REST instead of RPC-style SOAP) and thereby reduce the number of requests and excessive message parsing and marshalling?
There's probably a bunch other things to do as well, but those came to mind off the top of my head.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
In other words, it's not what you're using to do it, it's how you're doing it. If you're just pumping out files to clients on modems, 100+ concurrent requests isn't much. If those requests are all CPU-bound, I hope they're all niced or set to a low priority, otherwise you won't be able to log into the machine in a reasonable amount of time. If it's 100+ concurrent connections, but those connections aren't necessarily waiting for a response (just idle until the user does something) then you might not even care.
How many whatevers you have must always be qualified by knowledge of what those whatevers are doing. Otherwise your whatevers won't fit in your $20k thingamajig. And then Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset.
Of course, whether .NET is a properly-implemented system is a separate debate...
Argh, I hate to give up moderation rights but I have to chime in here.
A small business CANNOT afford to employ a full time UNIX administrator. Open source solutions just do not have the ease of administration of the Windows GUIs. Until they do, they will not be small business friendly. Windows Small Business Server provides you with one installer that will basically set you up completely (Exchange Server and all).
Now, before you flame me out for being pro-Microsoft, you should know that almost all my machines at home run Gentoo Linux, and I prefer to use Linux myself.
I had a long discussion with a good friend who is not terribly computer literate. Linux drives him _crazy_ because he can't just, "point, click and go" as he said it. Until these issues are resolved, we won't see small organizations without dedicated IT staff rolling out Linux installs.
A common misconception is that anybody can administer an MS server, but the truth is that it's not a whole lot easier to do than administer a Unix box. What's scary is that it looks easier and most IT managers think it's easier. That's why most Windows admins are grossly incompetent, especially when it comes to security.
A good Windows admin costs the same as a good Unix admin.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
I had a long discussion with a good friend who is not terribly computer literate. Linux drives him _crazy_ because he can't just, "point, click and go" as he said it.
Windows systems need an administrator every bit as clueful as a UNIX sysadmin if they are to have any reliability at all. If the Windows 'sysadmin' has to be able to point-click-go to be able to function, in all probability the Windows system will be unreliable and insecure.
It is a false economy to think that "It's Windows. I can hire a junior reboot monkey to admin the system" - a Windows system really does require a sysadmin every bit as competent, skilled and clueful as a Unix system. A Windows system can be very reliable with a clueful admin - but it *needs* a clueful admin. Companies are shooting themselves in the foot if they think otherwise.
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telling those companies they don't just have to buy
TANSTAAFL.
No matter what you'll have to layout cash to buy the three essential ingredients:
Microsoft marketing would have you believe that their software solves all your problems and that lots of cheaply available people can do the job. They'll still charge you for their software and you'll find out that hardware still costs something and that getting good people to support and maintain your software and hardware is more expensive, but worth it.
Linux advocates will tell you that the software costs zero and that any competent sysadmin can do the job. You'll find out you still have to buy reasonable hardware. And you'll find out that getting good poeple to maintain and support your hw and sw costs more, but is worth it.
Any way you go you're gonna pay.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
It's a damn simple question: can .NET really scale?
.NET will provide a relatively non-diminishing gain in performance as more capacity is added, which would be scaling.
That really isn't the question being asked at all.
This person doesn't want to know if
They actually want to know if it will handle a large number of concurrent connections to services on small hardware.
The real question is:
Will it handle a lot of clients at once on very little hardware?
The answer is: No.
If you don't have enough capital to invest in the infrastructure you need, you have to either find something that will do what you want with less, or give up on the whole idea.
Install an SSH server on Windows and you'll have much of the same functionality as UNIX through the command line.
" With UNIX I'm in Ireland (I'm usually based in the US) and I get a call 'We just got a new user, could you add them'. I whip out my Ericcson 68i and Sharp Zaurus - and ssh into the server and run a script to add the user."
Did you even bother to check out whether this was possible in Windows? I guess not: this site shows you how to add a user from the command line in Windows. In fact, you could even write a script to do that (batch files... remember those?) In fact, here are lots of handy other things you can do from the command line in Windows, including changing user passwords, forcing users to log off, and more.
Once again, ignorance of what Windows can do is no excuse. I administer 16 Linux boxes... I'm not anti-Linux by any stretch of the imagination, and I know that there are lots of situations where Linux is the better choice. But that still doesn't mean I'm ignorant about what Windows can and can't do.
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