[mapserver-users] Does MS4W multi-thread?

[J.J. Schlafley]

Very good.



----- Original Message ----
From: Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>
To: J.J. Schlafley <jjschlafley at yahoo.com>
Cc: mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:07:13 AM
Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] Does MS4W multi-thread?

J.J. Schlafley wrote:
> Hi all,
>  
> Will the mapserver CGI program multi-thread on an MS4W installation.  I 
> noticed many "mapserver.exe" image names in the task manager on my 
> server.  Assuming each image name corresponds with each request or 
> thread, will the OS delegate the processes to other CPU cores if 
> available?  I currently only have a single core Xeon, but am wondering 
> if a multi-core CPU could be beneficial with Apache and Mapserver (MS4W).

J.J.

Someone else already responded, but I just wanted to say this really simply
and clearly for everyone.

MapServer is a cgi, so Apache (or IIS) is creating a mapserver process for
each request that comes in.  This is good for multi-processor/multi-core
machines because when several mapserver requests are running at once, they
will normally be distributed across the available cores by the operating
system.

So, by architectural design MapServer cgi takes advantage of multi-core
systems well for non-trivial load situations.

What MapServer doesn't do is try to distribute a single request over multiple
cores.  To do so requires a great deal more complication in the core of
mapserver, and isn't - to my mind - justified.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up  | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org


      
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