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WB Dev 23 Application Server for Windows
Started by Don Schwirtlich, Aug., 12 2018 6:29 PM - 10 replies
Posted on August, 12 2018 - 6:29 PM
What is it I buy when I buy a WebDev 23 Application Server for Windows - I see its $350. First question, is when I buy that , its a permanent thing, its a one-time purchase ? And then I install it , either on my own box, or on a site that I rent space on , is that correct ?

And on one of these servers - how many users - for what I believe would be a small app , i am comparing the app I do, to something large , and I would consider my App - very small. Probably 10 tables, 1-3 records per user , per table, that kind of thing. Whats a wag as to how many concurrent users - would I be able to get on this server, or is that function of something else.

Thanks in advance

Don Schwirtlich
Posted on August, 12 2018 - 7:11 PM
Hi Don,

the Application Server is free with WB + WD - with 10 concurrent connections. For test purposes that should be enough. You can buy the App Server with unlimited concurrent connections. One App Server per Server OS (Windows or Linux). Each year, the App Server software can be upgraded to the next Wx version.
Posted on August, 12 2018 - 7:52 PM
Hi Guenter,

"Each year, the App Server software can be upgraded to the next Wx version."

OK, but if/when I upgrade my WX, MUST I also upgrade the App Server?

Best regards
Ola
Posted on August, 12 2018 - 8:06 PM
@DON

What you are asking, I think, is how many simultaneous CONNECTIONS you can have on a webdev server. That's a complex question. The answer depends:
- on the type of web site, awp or classic. In classic, there are persistent sessions between calls (think a windev exe running in memory for each user), so total memory usage can be the bottleneck. In awp, no persistent session, but more processing as a new session is created and deleted each time there is a server call.
- On what you web site is doing, of course (complex queries, lots of Disk access, etc) and there, you can have bottlenecks at the processeur or hard drive level.

so basically, you have all the usual bottlenecks possible, PLUS the bandwith allocated to your server.

So there is no easy answer, but on a correctly dimensionned server (yours if you have a good enough bidirectionnal connection, or a virualised or hardware based rented one), you can have easily between several hundred and several thousands simultaneous USERS (and here I'm not talking connections, as 95% of the time, the users are working on the browser side, and only the server calls will do anything on the server side)... So a rule of thumb: 100 users = 5 simultaneous connections in AVERAGE. of course, depending on your application, millage WILL vary.

If you plan/hope on having a user based expanding with time, you need to think about clusters of servers and replicated DBs to make sure that you can easily expand your infrastructure when it will be needed.

Best regards



@OLA

yes... You can host a site made in wb22 on a wb23 server, but NOT the contrary, as the old engine wouldn't know anything about the new server functions.
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 3:48 AM
A little confused here (not hard to do...). Guenter sez... "the Application Server is free with WB + WD - with 10 concurrent connections."

I have always taken this as I can have 10 users on the website at a time, 1 persistent session per 1 concurrent connection (classic mode, not AWP).

On the other hand, Fabrice sez... "So a rule of thumb: 100 users = 5 simultaneous connections in AVERAGE..." So I was incorrect about 1 persistent connect = 1 concurrent connection?

Thanks, Art
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 3:51 AM
Hi Don

You asked:
>First question, is when I buy that , its a permanent thing, its a one-time purchase ? And >then I install it , either on my own box, or on a site that I rent space on , is that correct ?

The unlimited version is a one time purchase for the version you have purchased. It will not support future WB versions so as improvements are made and functionality included you will not get the benefit of that. So if you are going to keep up with WB then you will need to keep up with the WAS. That is the long and short of it. All our clients have to upgrade each year if they want to keep up with the latest and greatest.

On your second question you do not need the unlimited version with which to test - the ten user is fine - the only limit is the number of simultaneous connections. And you can plonk this on any server on the planet.

On the matter of how many connections I agree with Fabrice's comment - there really is no theoretical limit. It depends on the server or farm of servers and mostly the bandwidth. Montpelier recommends around 4mb of disk space and RAM for each connection - something like that. In practice we have monitored the WAS at some peak times at clients of ours and it ticks over at 200 simultaneous connections - no lag, no issues. We drive all our web apps and web services through the WAS as it has many wonderful functions to control and monitor what is going on. It make us sleep soundly at night. For us it is one of the HUGE advantages of the WB environment - without this sort of tool web apps and web services management can be a nightmare. Maybe we have just got lucky but so far so good.

BTW - you do not need to install anything on your development machine to test - you have probably worked out that one. You can install the ten user on any machine in your office or in the cloud for testing.

Cheers
André
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 6:40 AM
Hi Art,

I'm not sure about the 100 users = 5 *simultaneous* connections thing. I think, that depends on the type of application too. I wouldn't bet on that in each and every configuration / application. If one (= customer) has an application serving 100 users ... what type of company / organisation is that which cannot afford 3 Euros per seat?

Imho, telemetry requires a WINDOWS Server plus Application server. Afaik, no Linux servers for telemetry. All of our servers are CentOS / Linux. We didn't even try.
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 6:43 AM
Hi Ola,

as Fabrice already said: App Server Software 20 will run WB programs of version 20 and less but never ever programs of version 21 and up.
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 12:37 PM
Thanks for the information , Guenter, Andre, Fabrice, Art, and others, very helpful, as you have been since I started this journey.

Best regards,

Don
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 1:20 PM
Hi everybody

a little more explanation, as I was not very clear, it seems...

I was not interested in the 10 users vs illimited users, so I didn't talk about that. In this sentence, USERS=SESSIONS on the server.
So if you are in a webdev CLASSIC site, it's 10 sessions
If you are in awp mode, and with my rule of thumb, you can have about 200 users hitting the server in theory... BUT, my rule of thumb is an average, which means that you WILL at some point have more than 10 request to the server at the same time and therefore ERROR MESSAGES for the users...

So I do NOT reccomand to use the 10 users engine for anything else than internal testing.

My rule of thumb really is for having an idea of the server load (processor and hard drive for classic, processor, hard drive and memory for awp) based on the number of users.

Best regards
Posted on August, 13 2018 - 7:03 PM
The 10 users - will work great for my internal testing. Before it hits the street, i will have my internal group testing the unlimited user.

Thanks Fabrice,

Best regards,

Don