I had trouble the other day. Ran a survey which generated about 700 responses an hour. It ran fine, then about 90 minutes in everything slowed up. The hosting service suspended our domain claiming our survey was overload the server. We had run the survey previously using PERL as the scripting language. It worked OK then. The only significant change in the scripting is that we switched to PHP from PERL. Here are some claims from the hosting service: Comment 1 Your survey, http://www.erespond.ino/thestar, is the cause of the server crashing. It is exceptionally PHP and MySQL heavy and unfortunately not the kind of application you can safely run in a shared-hosting environment. It is severely depleting resources on the server and denying other hosting clients access to their sites. This sort of survey should only be run on its own dedicated server, though I'm not sure that would help in this case as the PHP scripting seems to be running at above the necessary resources. Comment 2 re: perl vs php Yes, PHP would make a difference. Though it may be faster, it can devour resources and grind everything to a halt. If you had success running this survey previously in Perl, then I would suggest doing the same now. Comment 3: claim scripts as redundant After checking out your PHP scripts for this survey, it's our view that they are employing some redundant processing which is the cause of the memory drain on the server. Basically, it appears to be processing the same information over and over again when it adds something new. Comment 4: We currently running PHP Release 4.1.2-3 on this server. We are waiting for the stable release of PHP 4.3 for our servers. In response to your questions: So you suggest leaving the db open? What happens when someone bails out before the end? Would that then cause another problem? - You should be able to initiate a db close after a certain amount of time. We had about 600-700 hits an hour for the survey. Is that too much volume for you? - Nope. We can do about 300 per second. The problem was the PHP and MySQL applications eating memory. Is the actual problem the scripting or the graphics that are loaded during the survey? - The scripting. We can serve about 20 million hits per day for regular files. I've been researching some sites regarding resources for php, mysql and perl. General feeling seems to be that PHP is more efficient and doesn't create any signifcant resource needs over perl. - Very true. However, if the coding isn't done well it can devour a server. I've seen it happen countless times over the past few years. Same goes for CGI of course. But if your other script ran without incident, it seems obvious that the CGI version is the better choice for now. Are concurrent connects with mysql the problem? - They certainly don't help. The MySQL server is shared amongst other sites on this same server and obviously can only handle so much happening at once. Comment 5: response to I don't believe php is worse than perl CGI scripts are called once a form has been completed, the script then runs quickly and closes itself. A pHp page May open a connection to mySQL at the opening of the page, or later in it: either way instead of having the information passed to mysql in a separate place, it is done in the same place. It gives the impression of being more efficient(since a step is skipped) but for high traffic operations it can bog down a mySQL server, Especially if it is a shared one. I wondering if anyone has an opinion of whether I'm dealing with people who don't know what they're doing. Do any of their comments make sense. I'd be glad to provide further clarification if desired. I just have a real feeling that I'm not getting knowledgable answers. Thanks in advance. -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
