Re: Overwhelming a Web Application Server

[Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Walden H. Leverich
> "Active" is a funny word, someone that hasn't been to the site in 6
> hours, but you have an 10 hour session timeout, are they "active"?

I guess we could come up with our own definition of "active", but I tend to view sessions as something that consumes memory - they may be something that holds database tables open, and may even be causing CPU to be consumed, even though a user may not be actively hitting the server with new requests.

> While this is a fun discussion, I think we're doing exactly
> what I warned about at the start of the thread, we're "fixing" the
> problem w/out actually measuring where the problem is.

Well, that's a problem with hypothetical cases.  I think your contribution to the discussion has been valuable, nevertheless.

> we've latched onto session as an issue, and in fact the issue may
> be as simple as a poorly indexed database.

No, a database index would be too easy.  Whatever the problem at the university, it goes on semester after semester, year after year.

Nathan.