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Sever And Page Loads


Blind Bandit

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Well I didn't know if there was a need to make two threads. Also I don't know if this would go under web hosting or pre-sales, Anyway on to my questions.

 

What dose server load mean and what is an acceptable level?

 

Also, what is an acceptable page load time?

 

I'm just curious as its hard to find what is considered good.

 

Thanks,

 

Shaun

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Well I didn't know if there was a need to make two threads. Also I don't know if this would go under web hosting or pre-sales, Anyway on to my questions.
No problem :)

 

What dose server load mean and what is an acceptable level?
It's a complicated concept with no real good answer. Generally server load gives you an overall feel for how busy the server is and it represents many different aspects of a server from CPU usage to disk I/O although most generally refer to it as CPU load. Here is a link that will give you some more detailed information on server load:

http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/understanding_load.html

 

Generally as a hosting client I would ignore the server_load unless I notice sluggishness, there are many things that can cause high server load such as backups that will generally not affect the server's ability to serve pages in a quick fashion.

 

Also, what is an acceptable page load time?
It greatly depends on the content of the page in question that is being loaded. If it's just a static html file with a few images then it should load very quickly. You have to take into account all of the processes that take place during loading a page such as the DNS lookup on the domain, the latency between the client and the server, the parsing time of any php/cgi script that may be used to generate the page, and the speed and reliability of the network connection of the end user visiting the page.

 

I'm just curious as its hard to find what is considered good.
It's difficult to find what is considered good because it varies greatly from server to server and provider to provider. We do our best to optimize our servers for speed and reliability and we are always working to make improvements and as an example we have just tonight enabled mod_deflate on all of our servers for any client that wishes to use it to compress their web page output for quicker load times in general for their web sites.

 

Thanks,

No problem :)

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  • 2 months later...
Quick question in this vein: is server load here measured out of 1.00 or 4 x 1.00 on the support system server stats? Thanks.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. The server loads generally never exceed 5 even when the servers are being very heavily used which is good. They can handle up to 10 or so before we start to get nervous although we will look into the load at anything over 5 to see if it is an issue that needs resolved or something normal that will go away in time (such as a user backing up 5 accounts simultaneously).

 

Theoretically it would be 1 load per CPU core, so on most of our servers it would be out of 4 - but it doesn't exactly work out like that as more than just CPU usage goes into the load.

 

I hope this answers your question, but if you need more clarification just post back :)

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That makes sense; I'll probably look up the exact definition of load later but it's pretty much as I expected. Which is nice...looks like the servers are barely idling today :)

The loads go up a bit at night as the servers are seeding their backups :) During the day when most visitors are hitting the servers the loads are generally very low. Even when backups are being made the servers are still very fast and responsive which is good.

 

We're working on a better backup system that will not put as much load on the servers and would give multiple restore points throughout every day as far back as maybe 7 days and then weekly backups as far as a few months back. It's not ready yet but it is in the works.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_(computing)

 

What I meant by load is caused by more than CPU usage is that it is caused by more than simply a script requiring CPU power - for example if a user is aggressively reading and writing to the Hard Drives that could cause I/O waits which causes processes to have to wait on I/O which increases the load.

 

It's a complicated subject :)

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Nice, my old WirelessG router is still working great :) If I need more speed I just use a cable to my gigabit switch! :)

 

I hear the WRT310N runs hot, any issues?

 

No issues. I think the Linksys firmware on the 310N is rather lame anyhow. I sorta have to run everything wireless, and it's short-distance so the local throughput max's out PowerBoost on my Comcast connection.

 

Speaking of which, seems like I remember a Comcast IP near Indianapolis back when things were eing set up on my account. Yours? (feel free to delete if that reveals too much heh)

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No issues. I think the Linksys firmware on the 310N is rather lame anyhow. I sorta have to run everything wireless, and it's short-distance so the local throughput max's out PowerBoost on my Comcast connection.

 

Speaking of which, seems like I remember a Comcast IP near Indianapolis back when things were eing set up on my account. Yours? (feel free to delete if that reveals too much heh)

Yes, I use Comcast when I work from home which I try to do as often as possible to spend time with my family! :)

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