Server spec to run Tomcat 2

[ITOps10]

Please can anyone help, I know nothing about Tomcat but our company needs to buy a server to run it can anyone tell me what sort of spec the server needs to be? and also whether it is memory or processor intensive. Thanks

 

[sedj]

User load ? Expected traffic ? Concurrent number of users ? Peaks/troughs ? Data type/size transfer ?
Win32 or Linux ?

--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[siberian]

If its light to moderate usage, no more then a request or so a second, any standard new PC will do fine.

If you traffic requirements are more then that you are beyond 'what type of server do I buy' and into 'what sort of architecture do I need to put in place'.

Sedj may not agree

 

[ITOps10]

Thank you both for getting back to me, will the information below help a bit more

win32 - 50 concurrent users - web based application displaying tiff images held on different server.

Also can you tell me if Tomcat is processor or memory intensive.

 

[siberian]

50 CONCURRENT users???

So, you need to handle 50 requests at the same time on a continual basis?

Or are you saying '50 people will use it in total'. If so, how often will each user be accessing it?

50 CONCURRENT users has a huge huge burden as compared to 50 total users.

Tomcat is not that intensive but your apps might be.

 

[sedj]

Going on the basis that you have 50 concurrent users accessing TIFF data, I would say you would need at least :

2-4 Gb RAM
3.0GHz processer

You will also probably need a cluster of 2 or 3 machines - depends on the sizes of the TIFFs and the way you are loading them.
I would also change Tomcat's startup JVM to be allocated as much RAM as possible.


--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[siberian]

But if you have 50 TOTAL users accessing it 20 times a day each then you can get away with a much smaller machine.

The delta here is CONCURRENT or TOTAL users..

 

[ITOps10]

I've been told 50 total users accessing all day possibly their main working app

 

[sedj]

ITOps10 :

"50 total users accessing all day" - does that mean 50 users all accessing the site all the time, all day (ie the maximum load will be 50 concurrent users) or does it mean there are 50 users that access the site in total, but the convurrent user load will be 5 to 10 ?

Basically - how many users will be accessing the site at any one time (ie concurrent maximum number).

If you cannot be precise - then we cannot give you a precise answer !



--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[ITOps10]

maximum load will be 50 concurrent users, all day, 5 day's a week.

 

[sedj]

In that case, I would say that you will probably need a cluster of two machines, which have a spec of 2.5-2 GHz and at least 2 Gb of RAM (for downloading all those tiff files).

--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[siberian]

I think you are overestimating ITOps10. This is ok but you will spend a lot more then you need.

Another way to approach it is to buy a nice midrange machine and go live. See how it works. You cna always add another, tougher machine as a clustered solution and this way you are not buying hardware you do not require.

My experience is that people tend to dramatically over state their requirements.

For example, if you are just displaying TIFF data then the size of your server is not critical since its a static file. If you are dynamically GENERATING TIFF data on the fly that is much more intensive.

Your looking for a simple answer to a complex question so my advice is 'go midrange with a 3GHz, 2GB RAM P4 system and grow into it.'

 

[ITOps10]

Thank you both for your input on this subject, I know have a good base to work from.

Thanks again.

 

[pr0n603]

I have a similar question. My webapp will have about 100-200 total users uploading/downloading pdf files (3-5 mb each). Im expecting each user to upload 2-3 files a month and download 3-5 files each month.


Webapp runs in tomcat with mysql for user management on debian.
What do you think the specs for the machine shuold be?
What do you think the specs should be if number of users increases to 400-500?

Thanks a lot!

 

[sedj]

Well, again, like the original poster, you do not tell us how many CONCURRENT users you need to cater for. You could have 500 million billion users, but if they only downloaded one pdf once a year, then that is different to having 20 users downloading a pdf every minute.

So, once again - how many CONCURRENT users are you expecting ?!

--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[pr0n603]

probably having 5-10 users downloading at the same time

thanks

 

[sedj]

Well, if 10 users download a 3Mb pdf all at the same time, you'll need around 30 Mb of RAM just for the file operations. So a machine with 256Mb of RAM will be quite sufficient I would have thought. DOn't forget to alter Tomcat's startup/catalina script to initialize the JVM with more RAM than the default (which is only 16Mb).

CPU wise, I'd say you would get away with a 1 GHz machine, but 2Ghz would be safer.

--------------------------------------------------
Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[pr0n603]

thanks a lot sedj!