Re: Why is the iSeries so slow

["Buck" <buck.calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Let me get this straight.  By front-ending the iSeries with a
> PC,  you only see a 10% performance improvement?
> Why add the PC to the configuration?

Because we're testing as many scenarios as possible.  Some of our customers
will want to run everything on their iSeries, including their web server.
Some customers utterly refuse to put any part of their iSeries on the web,
and insist on a PC to do their web serving.  Our application is a pretty
standard Java servlet task, using the Toolbox for Java to call back-end RPG
programs which provide the data.

> My question is when given a complex
> Web workload, which would perform better?

My web experience is with WebFacing and now our servlet-based application
which does not use JDBC, but these Toolbox program calls to get/put the
data.  Both of these applications are light work on the HTTP/servlet engine
side.  All of the real work happens on the iSeries.  The PC we were using to
host is a Win2K Pentium II 450 with 256 megs of RAM -  my everyday work PC.
I can only guess that a more modern PC would make a greater improvement.

> Of course, if you were using efficient native
> iSeries interfaces rather than Java, you'd probably
> be seeing 500% to 1000% performance improvement ;-)

If only there were such a thing for the web.  I love the iSeries and think
it's a wonderful machine.  Most especially, I love OS/400.  I have every
faith that IBM can make OS/400 scream for e-tasks.
  --buck