What are limits on Lasso @ PHP

[wingwalker]

Hi

I'm new to this part of Filemaker and I have a question. I know that FileMaker has limits on the number of clients on an FMP server at one time. I think the number is 250 if I remember correctly.

Do the same kinds of limits apply to a web interface using Lasso or PHP? We would be talking upwards of 4000 plus.

Thanks for your help,

James

[Genx]

Well it's limited to 250 sessions.. but you have to remember that with CWP, a session only really exists when data is requested from the server and this procedure generally takes less than a second...

So In one minute you could have 250 * 60 people make a request = roughly 15,000 requests.

But to be honesty, with this volume I'd probably go a SQL solution.

[wingwalker]

Hi Genx,

Could you explain the following a little more.

But to be honesty, with this volume I'd probably go a SQL solution.

Are you saying that the volume of 4000 is pushing the limits of Filemaker? And what is a SQL solution?

I've been told based on the number of users and with the users growing all the time that Filemaker is not a good choice. Are you saying that as well?

Thanks for your help Genx,

James

[Genx]

Well, From what i've read... FileMaker CWP doesn't do too well with a large volume of requests at any one time, you'd probably want to run some stress tests on your own server (i.e. simulate 50 requests at once and see how your server does). It is very hardware dependant, so if you have 4 dual core processors running with 4 gig of ram, your server will probably do better than a single quad core with 2gig...

A SQL solution would be a solution running in something like MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL etc. (the first and last of which are free). This is a database like FileMaker but which is much more suited to this volume of requests. Depending on what you are actually using this for, you could pump info from FM to SQL and then use that for the front end.

.. Unfortunately that would require a fair bit of effort on your part in terms of going through the process of learning SQL (not that it's that difficult).

Anyway, point is, I can't really tell you whether it's pushing its limits (according to the documentation its not) because I haven't experimented with requests that large at this stage, sorry :o

[Genx]

PS, you didn't really mention 4000 people in what period of time... Do you really expect 4000 people to be on your website at one time?

[wingwalker]

Hello again,

Do you really expect 4000 people to be on your website at one time?

Yes we do. Between questions, answers, sending & receiving information, reading articals, order entry etc., it will be very busy especially from 10:00AM to 4:00PM Monday-Saturday.

I'm very concerned about Filemaker's ability to handle it. Even as a front end, if I understand that meaning correctly, do you think Filemaker is the way to go long term as we add 700 to 1200 addational users a year?

I really thank you for your help because I'm really struggling here.

James

Edited July 5, 2007 by Guest

[Genx]

For something that large, I'd probably say you should look at another solution -- e.g. SQL, like i said, much more appropriate for this sort of purpose and doesn't have the user limitation.

Which particular version of SQL you choose is up to you, but MySQL and PostgreSQL are both free and of good quality.