[Mapserver-users] server specifications

[Benjamin Wragg]

Ryan,

I know you haven't mentioned PostGIS, but if your going to run PostGIS
and PostgreSQL you might want to consider the Linux option. I've
personally found it performs much better.

Cheers,

Benjamin Wragg


-----Original Message-----
From: mapserver-users-admin at lists.gis.umn.edu
[mailto:mapserver-users-admin at lists.gis.umn.edu] On Behalf Of Ed
McNierney
Sent: Wednesday, 6 August 2003 7:37 AM
To: Grant, Ryan; Mapserver Users (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [Mapserver-users] server specifications


Ryan -

Here are a few things to think about:

1. We run MapServer on both Windows and on Linux, on similar machines.
I have no evidence that either operating system is perceptibly faster or
slower than the other, and I know of no reason why one would run faster.
Use the operating system your server administrators know how to use.  If
they know both, let them have a shouting match to decide <g>.

2. You need to understand your client load and goals before you can spec
the hardware.  That is, you can't tell if the hardware is fast enough
until you define precisely what "fast enough" is supposed to mean.  How
many simultaneous users?  What response time requirement?  I'm sure
you'll say you don't know all that, but you need to make some guesses so
you can get a baseline.

3. Your Web server will run multiple instances of MapServer/MapScript as
needed to serve simultaneous requests.  If there are two CPUs available,
two simultaneous requests will go faster.  One request will go a bit
faster (sometimes) on two CPUs because the OS and MapServer can run in
parallel.  However, MapServer is not multithreaded and will not take
advantage of multiple processors when running a single instance.

4. You should probably have lots of RAM in any event, for OS file
caching and to support multiple MapServer instances.

5. The biggest performance issues, if you're serving lots of raster
data, involve your data organization and disk subsystem.  SCSI RAID disk
arrays are certainly faster than other systems, but they're quite
expensive.  In our experience IDE RAID arrays can be quite good if
they're configured as read-only data stores - mixing read and write
operations will hurt you a lot.  Be sure your raster data is
well-understood, and well-organized - appropriately tiled, indexed, and
with overviews if appropriate.

	- Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242 

-----Original Message-----
From: Grant, Ryan [mailto:	]
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 4:55 PM
To: Mapserver Users (E-mail)
Subject: [Mapserver-users] server specifications


Hey all,

We are looking to purchase a server to act as a dedicated Mapserver/OGC
services provider. We run Mapserver with the PHP/Mapscript module, and
are wondering what sort of system would work best in this configuration.
Would you recommend Linux over Windows? We have been running Mapserver
on a windows machine, but we hear that it will run faster on Linux as a
service. Is it a big jump to recompile it to work on Linux?  Also, what
would you recommend as the minimum hardware specs, with respect to
processors and RAM? Can Mapserver make use of dual processors if
configured properly, and is the price worth the performance gain? Some
of our raster data gets as large as 100mb per image if that needs to be
taken into consideration.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan Grant
Research Assistant/Programmer
GSC - Pacific Division
Natural Resources Canada
(604) 666-7526
rgrant at nrcan.gc.ca

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