[ic] Interchange 4.6.4 now available

[Doug Alcorn]

Dan B <db@cyclonehq.dnsalias.net> writes:

> >(2) Added the excellent Apache module mod_interchange, written by Francis
> >J. Lacoste of iNsu Innovations Inc. It can be used instead of the standard
> >vlink or tlink programs to connect Apache to Interchange.
> 
> Has anyone benchmarked this?  (Even anecdotally?) (anecdotally *is*
> a word, BTW)

I'm using mod_interchange.  I'm not sure it's that much of a
performance boost.  What it saves you is the instantiation time of the
t/vlink executable.  I guess it's removing a layer out of the
communications as well.  I think it simplifies security (no setuid cgi
scripts).  IMHO it makes the setup of apache cleaner.  It's much more
obvious what you're doing in the httpd.conf when you setup a directory
as interchange-hander instead of just generic ScriptAlias.

But, don't take my spin on performance as gospel.  I've not done any
benchmarking (in fact, I don't know how to benchmark web apps).
However, originally I was trying to run IC on a sparc IPX (a 40MHz
plain ol' sparc chip) with 64MB RAM.  It was very slow.  I switched
over to mod_interchange hoping it would buy me _something_.  It did
get me some performance gain (just because instantiating a new
interchange process was so heavy for that box).  My page load times
went from 30 seconds per page to about 20 - 25 seconds per page.  It
wasn't enough to let me stay on that box!

As I said, this isn't a benchmark.  I doubt if you have a dual pentium
box with 128MB+ RAM you will see a 33% gain in performance.  Anyway,
you asked for anecdotes and I'm giving you mine. :)
-- 
(__) Doug Alcorn <doug@lathi.net> http://www.lathi.net
oo / PGP 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1  61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543
|_/  If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're
     free, you don't have to proselytize, you just have to wait.