how to speed up MapServer performance?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Zhonghai Wang wrote:
> Hi there,
>  
> for a special purpose I've developed an static version application based 
> on MapServer CGI, which means I just use pure HTML tages for the GUI, 
> even without JavaScript code snippets to validate forms.
>  
> I have about 20 map layers to display according to different map scale 
> (ussing the MAXSCALE, SYMBOLSCALE AND LABELMAXSCALE), there are no data 
> classifications within a layer object, the status of all layers are set 
> as default.
>  
> I've made a test on a standalone MapServer (XP system), every request 
> takes about 3 second. Obvioursly it's not fast enough for a web 
> application, since there may be many users requesting the server at the 
> same time if the application is published on the web.
>  
> Is MapServer really so slow? can anybody give me some ideas?should I 
> modify the mapfiles?
>  
> I am wondering whether the following solutions will work:
> 1. define every layer as a seperate mapfile, and  combine them together 
> by request
> 2. turn off the non-displayed layers off on the fly
>  
> are these possible to speed up MapServer performance?
> Zhonghai
> -- 
> Freiestrasse
> 3097 Liebefeld


Make sure ALL *.shp have a *.qix file using shptree <file>.shp
on Linux you can run:
   find /path/to/data -name "*.shp" -exec shptree {} \;
and that will do it, on Windows you are on your own :)

-Steve W.