why is http://www.mersenne.org/ so slow

I burn a lot of CPU cycles for GIMPS, but I am disgusted with the speed of the http://www.mersenne.org/ pages.


Unfair standard when you want speed from our computers!

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I burn a lot of CPU cycles for GIMPS, but I am disgusted with the speed of the http://www.mersenne.org/ pages.


Unfair standard when you want speed from our computers!

Almost always works well for me. Sometimes slow, mostly not.

Perhaps you could ask your ISP to see if there's anything wrong with your connection?

[Batalov]

No, the OP does have a point - especially in the first minutes of every hour (and we know why). Every once in a while, one can even get the coveted "pnErrorResult=3 pnErrorDetail=Database unavailable ==END==" result, frame it and put it on the wall to adore.

[Dubslow]

@OP -- PrimeNet's slowness has always been one of the shortcomings of GIMPS (IMO anyways). We all know its slow, but considering that GIMPS is run entirely on volunteer efforts and donations, it's slightly amazing that it works at all. It's fast enough for computers needing to get work, so we just deal with it. In case you're not aware, avoid using the pages at the top of the hour; that's when it runs all the report updates, e.g. "Results reported in the last hour" and all the "Top xxx Producers" reports. That takes more than a bit of server side crunching.

Many of us also believe that it may have something to do with the fact that PrimeNet runs on Windows software -- may or may not contribute to its slowness . If you're willing to fund moving the server to more powerful hardware, and/or moving it to some sort of LAMP setup, we'd love to see it . (Of course, that also requires the cooperation of Mr. Woltman, but he does have a regular job, on top of all the coding he does to make Prime95 as fast as possible.)

tl;dr: Yes, it is kind of slow, but in a massive volunteer effort, luxuries like a slightly faster server are hard to come by -- we're just happy that it works at all.

Edit: @chalsall: How do we know if the slowness if hardware or software? I've been wondering that one for quite a while now.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Batalov

No, the OP does have a point - especially in the first minutes of every hour (and we know why). Every once in a while, one can even get the coveted "pnErrorResult=3 pnErrorDetail=Database unavailable ==END==" result, frame it and put it on the wall to adore.

But the OP has a point which should be considered...

Why does PrimeNet sometimes give the "Database unavailable" error message later in the hour, when it's not busy doing summary queries? Or, take a really long time to answer simple queries? Like, for example, it is doing right now.

Resource starvation anyone?

Since PrimeNet is running on WinBlows, wouldn't it make sense to automate a daily reboot?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

If you're willing to fund moving the server to more powerful hardware, and/or moving it to some sort of LAMP setup, we'd love to see it .

And let us please identify the elephant in the room...

After GIMPS won $100,000, there was a promise that Mersenne.org would be upgraded to a modern hardware / software platform.

To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by chalsall

And let us please identify the elephant in the room...

After GIMPS won $100,000, there was a promise that Mersenne.org would be upgraded to a modern hardware / software platform.

To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened.

...But like I said, we're a volunteer effort; more to the point, just about everyone here either has a day job and little spare time, or is not capable of re-creating the server in the LAMP environment. (I fall into the second category )

Originally Posted by chalsall

Like, for example, it is doing right now.

I just found out what you meant :/

I gave it 30 seconds and hadn't even gotten HTTP headers back as a response.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Why does PrimeNet sometimes give the "Database unavailable" error message later in the hour, when it's not busy doing summary queries?

I had assumed (admittedly without a shred of proof - though it did afford me some comfort believing it) that these were the time our bigger users were doing large results/updates/reservations

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by chalsall

And let us please identify the elephant in the room...

After GIMPS won $100,000, there was a promise that Mersenne.org would be upgraded to a modern hardware / software platform.

To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened.

There were a couple posts from George a good year ago on this topic.
I vaguely remember it had something to do with George and Scott still trying to come to terms.

[ET_]

Originally Posted by chalsall

And let us please identify the elephant in the room...

After GIMPS won $100,000, there was a promise that Mersenne.org would be upgraded to a modern hardware / software platform.

To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened.

Last year some of us contributed a small money donation to GIMPS, but AFAIK, they are still at 3% of the projected goal.

Luigi

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

But the OP has a point which should be considered...

Why does PrimeNet sometimes give the "Database unavailable" error message later in the hour, when it's not busy doing summary queries? Or, take a really long time to answer simple queries? Like, for example, it is doing right now.

I, too, started noticing a few days ago that responses from mersenne.org were slow even when not in the first 7-8 minutes of each hour.