[JDEV] scaling a single server

[David Waite]

I'd like to also say a few points:

single servers can handle a small load (say, a small ISP). A distributed
server network would not only need to usually be a custom solution, but the
types of ISPs that would be interested (for instance, Mindspring comes to
mind) have the money to research and possibly fund something like this.
Without having a server farm handy (for that matter, more than one machine)
it is kind of hard to really develop something like this.

Second that jabber has an advantage over many other protocols in that it
stores the user's roster on the server. Therefore a directory service can
sort people via first degree relationships on the roster (users who all talk
to one another are all on the same server in the farm, users who all have
friends on another server also can be grouped this way). With something like
ICQ, you can't do this since the server has no idea of the user's contact
list.

Third, if you would like to see how a scalable system that supports a server
farm in this fashion would work, I have heard good things about the
Microsoft Messenger Protocol in this respect - you can find the protocol
over on IETF

-David Waite

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jdev-admin at jabber.org [mailto:jdev-admin at jabber.org]On Behalf Of
> temas
> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 12:48 PM
> To: jdev at jabber.org
> Subject: Re: [JDEV] scaling a single server
>
>
> If you wanted multiple servers to be @singlehostname.com, there
> is no exact
> solution yet.  It really depends on how your setting it up, and
> is most likely
> a proprietary solution at this point.  We are looking at a few
> ideas for out of
> the box solutions, but I must say they aren't as friendly to a
> setup due to
> many facts.  One of the primary points is XML processing.  With
> any protocol
> you lose some time to the processing of the data stream, one of
> our ideas and
> goals when looking at proprietary setups, we remove the XML
> parser and put it
> in a seperate machine.  Then we look at adding a few boxes to
> handle the tons
> of connections (I'm thinking fairly high here on a Linux box,
> that can only
> be modded to a certain number of connections).  So at this point
> we've reduced
> the load in a decent amount on the primary engines.  There are a
> lot of other
> components to jabber that could run on it's own box for a
> solution of grand
> proportions.  But I digress.
>
> What kind of scaling do you need on a single box? We are looking
> at some pretty
> cool ideas.  One of the problems that we've sort of kept quite for a while
> (yeah we're bad) is that PTH does not play well with
> multiprocessor machines,
> because the threading is userland it can only use a single
> processor.  When
> jer and I met in NYC for the expo he proposed his solution on that and we
> refined it a bit.  What we're looking at is making the different
> processors
> do different parts, likein the multi box setup above.  Put the
> XML parser on a
> processor, TCP handler, Garbage collector, etc... That way we
> utilize the box
> more.  That should VASTLY increase single box scaling.  For
> single CPU systems
> (as with any server)  there will be a max point that'll be hit.
>
> --temas
>
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2000 at 11:46:33AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> > I was asking if anyone has any *experience* with scaling a single
> > server.  In spite of all the replies, the answer seems to be "no".  I
> > can see how you might use multiple servers if some of the users are
> > foo at jabber1.example.com and some are bar at jabber2.example.com.  How
> > would you use multiple servers if all of the users are
> > foo at jabber.example.com?
> >
> > --
> > -russ nelson <sig at russnelson.com>  http://russnelson.com
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