Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Is OpenACS extremely slow?

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Posted by defunct defunct on
Sorry about that, I didn't mean to imply there was no configuration problem, you may well need to configure somehting correctly, I merely observered that that is a pretty low mem. level... and it would definately help..

Ok, you asked what the big difference is, so I'll try and explain in general terms.

MySQL is not (arguably) an ACID compliant database. If you're not worried about things like transactional integrity, rollback and so forth, then its fine.... however for the kinds of systems that OpenACS is deployed for these are necessary.

OpenACS is many good things, but perhaps the most significant element is its well conceived datamodel. This extensive arrangement is what offers you the OpenACS facilities such a permissioning, subsite management and so on...

So on that score alone, OpenACS is far more comprehensive (and therefore sizeable) than you existing setup.

Apache Vs AOLServer. This is a more difficult one. It often depend on exactly what you define as Apache (i.e. the numerous extensions). But at the core level Apache offers about 20% of what AOLServer can do. Apache is excellent at serving static pages, simple content and so forth, but AOLServer excels when you need a good, well managed interface to a database and your creating highly interactive web services.

My company has delivered projects on a number of alternative in the past two years (i.e. JBoss/J2EE based, Apache/Tomcat/MySQL, IIS/SQLServer and so forth) and I can tell you, without hesitation or shadow of a doubt, OpenACS is a far superior platform.

And thats not personal evangelism, that comes from the bitter realities of commercial development. I formed our company around OpenACS because it allows us to be highly profitable, deliver with quality whilst at the same time being able to offer our customers fantastic pricing due to reduced development and OS principles.

In fact if anything this is where OpenACS wins over all.. The speed and reliability with which one can create new application is breathtaking....

A recent implementation done with Tomcat/JBoss ended up taking nearly 4-5 times longer than our estimates for an OpenACS based solution.

Looking at your original mail I'm a bit surprised by one thing. You say AOLServer is constantly consuming about 20% of your processing power, even when idle... I can certainly say that in all our installations AOLServer remains quiet and very low in terms of resource usage......

This does seem unusual....

So you have further info on your setup? i.e. what versions of Linux are you using?... Also are you using OpenACS 3 or 4.... if 3 I can't really help you. My comments above all relate to 4.5

It might be worth posting to the AOLServer mailing list, as there's some pretty switched on AOLServer folks there.

Also, and I can't promise I'll know, can you post up your config file for AOLServer (remove passwords ;)....

But in summary, no, I don't think what your seeing is 'normal' so I'm sure someone here will be able to help :)

PS/ Another good reason to use OpenACS, is that this community is one of the best around.