At 04/20/2002 12:30 AM, you wrote:

>Hi all
>
>About half a month ago I already posted a similar question.
>Suprisingly I didn't get a lot of response although I expected it to
>be a question of broader interest/experience. Now I give it another try.

Not everybody in this list has experienced what you are asking. My clients
average 5 client connections, for now.

>I'm curious to know what kind of configuration gets the most powerfull
>Firebird installation. Are there significant differents within the
>operting systems supported by Firebird (WIN/LINUX/SOLARIS...)? Which
>is the most powerfull hardware nowaddays available? What's most
>beneficially from server hardware configuration point of view (disk?
>memory?,???).

Linux would be an excellent choice, since it doesn't consume as much
physical resources as Windows. Try to get a fast hard drive(7200+ RPM,
15,000 RPM exists with sizes up to 36GB, if larger is required there are
some at 10,000 RPM), and you can either go with IDE ATA-100(or faster) or
SCSI, which ever fits the budget. Memory, I think 256MB would be enough,
but someone could correct me if I'm wrong. Multi-processor doesn't make
much of a difference for Super Server version, unless on Windows where you
can set Firebird to run on Processor No.2 and let Windows mainly use
Processor No.1. Make sure that the anti-virus is not checking the file
extensions used for the database. Also, if the Firebird server ends up on
a Windows XP machine or Windows .NET server(beta 3 is out), make sure that
you don't use .gdb as an extension, since it's monitored by the system
restore feature (we got a response of 10-20% increase in performance from
our clients after doing so). Also, the performance could be slowed down by
a slow network. So, if you can get a 100Mbit or 1Gbit network and make
sure that all the computers are properly setup for optimum usage of the
network.

>The application I'm running will be accessed by about 50 user at a
>time. Around 40 connections are not very active and will only do
>reading (call center stuff), 10 connections will be rather busy one
>(administration stuff). The size of the database is expected to be in
>GB-Range (6-10 GB).

Get the 64-bit I/O version of Firebird Super Server(Windows and Linux),
just so you don't have to deal with multiple files.

IMPORTANT: The other major performance impact will depend on the structure
of your database and queries.


Daniel Rail
Senior System Engineer
ACCRA Group Inc. (www.accra.ca)
ACCRA Med Software Inc. (www.accramed.ca)