[mapguide-internals] MapGuide RFC 42 - Remove Support Servers

[Trevor Wekel]

Hi Zac,

Since the configuration of site and support servers is no longer possible through the Site Administrator, this RFC effectively disables support server functionality.

I agree having multiple site repositories makes data management for load balanced site servers more complex.  Packages (mgp files) can help alleviate this problem if a "production" and "dev/test" environment are set up.  Only the production setup would be load balanced.  Mgp's would be created in the "dev/test" environment and deployed to the production site servers using an mgp load.

There are a couple of performance advantages to using load balanced site servers versus site and support servers:

1.  All service to service traffic remains in process on the local machine.

A typical rendering service operation talks to the resource service and feature service.  In a site server / support server setup, all of this traffic will have to be serialized, transmitted over the wire, and de-serialized.  This incurs significant overhead.

The only way to get good performance on site/support server setup is to have all of the services except resource service present on each support server.  This also means the managed and unmanaged data files (SDF, SHP, raster) must also be present on each support server.  So you end up performing the data replication manually.

2.  Multiple site servers provide multiple session repositories.

This is significant for higher user loads because the users are evenly balanced over the available site servers.  It is similar to using a database cluster that does not perform replication.


Does this help?

Thanks,
Trevor

-----Original Message-----
From: mapguide-internals-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:mapguide-internals-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Zac Spitzer
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 6:24 PM
To: MapGuide Internals Mail List
Subject: Re: [mapguide-internals] MapGuide RFC 42 - Remove Support Servers

"Load balanced site servers provide better scalability and easier
setup than separate site
and support servers. Furthermore, the site and support server concept
is confusing for the user base."

How will this affect server admin?.... the support server (calling it
a Render Slave makes a lot more sense) approach
means you only need to maintain and update one repository.

Having to maintain 6 site servers instead of 5 support servers and one
site server sounds like a backward step
in terms of maintainability.

Renaming the support servers to something that provides more insight
into their function would be a good step.

Also the RFC Title should specify that this is only at the MapGuide
Site Administrator level

ie "Remove Support Servers from MapGuide Site Administrator"

Regards

Zac

On Dec 6, 2007 11:40 AM, Trevor Wekel <trevor.wekel at autodesk.com> wrote:
> I would like to submit "MapGuide RFC 42 - Remove Support Servers" to the list for review and comment.  Please send your comments/concerns back to the list and I will respond.
>
> http://trac.osgeo.org/mapguide/wiki/MapGuideRfc42
>
> Thanks,
> Trevor Wekel
>
> _______________________________________________
> mapguide-internals mailing list
> mapguide-internals at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapguide-internals
>



--
Zac Spitzer -
http://zacster.blogspot.com (My Blog)
+61 405 847 168
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