Re: [HACKERS] shared memory 651, freebsd 2.2.7

At 03:16 AM 9/30/99 +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

> Would eventually some kind of a middle tear application with
> a limited number of work processes which connect to the
> database help?

This is exactly how some web servers, i.e. AOLServer (which
I use) help to throttle traffic. This server lets you
limit the number of pooled backends, when the pool's exhausted,
the web server blocks new threads until there's a free back
end.

This means you can configure your web server to service the
number of concurrent back-ends you think it can deal with,
based on its hardware configuration and the load placed on
it due to your specific queries and database contents, and
web load.

AOLServer's been doing this for at least five years. For
web work, it's seems to be the right place to do it, because
there are other things that impact the load the server can
deal with. The db access throttle is just one of various
throttles one can imagine when trying to tune the entire
site.

Of course, this is web specific in detail. Not necessarily
in concept, though...

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza(at)pacifier(dot)com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net.