CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxio
hguser
hguser

Reputation: 36028

IO performance in windows and linux

We want to build a web service to return some images (like google map tiles).

And the source data is organized as the esri compact cache format,the key of our service is to read the tiles from the bundles.

I am not sure how to choose the platform,windows or linux?

It is said that the linux have a bettor IO reading/writing performance than that of windows.

However java is our only choose if we choose linux,so I want to know if there is any points we should know to impove the IO reading performnce in linux?

PS:

In winodws platform,we will build the service based on .net4 using c#,and deploy the service use iis.

In linux,we will build the service using java (maybe based on spring mvc or some other mvc framework),and deploy the service using tomcat.

Update:

We may have the following source compact files in different folds:

L1
    RxxCxx.bundle
    RxxCxx.bundlx
L2
    RxxCxx.bundle
    RxxCxx.bundlx

And the request from the client may looks like this:

http://ourserver/maptile?row=123&col=234&level=1.png

For this requst,we will go in to the fold L1 since the level is 1,then read the RxxCxx.bundlx file first,since this file is the metadata that till tell us the position(the offset and length in RxxCxx.bundle) of the data for render the image(row=123&col=234),then we will read the RxxCxx.bundle according to the offset and length. Then we render the data to an image by write them to the response and set the content type to "image/png" or something else.

This is a whole procceed to handle a request.

Then I wonder if there is any documents or exist demos which can show me how to handle these type of IO reading?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 5348

Answers (2)

iDevelopForMoney
iDevelopForMoney

Reputation: 69

The only situation where you have to have Windows servers in your environment is when you choose MS SQL Server DBMS (it is almost a Sybase but is a way cheaper), in which case have Windows box for the DB and *nix server for middle tier.

There are many situations where Windows can be used. Beginning with the declaration "have to have Windows" reveals an existing bias and is then followed by many groundless statements. But at least you clearly recognized this as the case.

Java is the best technology for millisecond grade middleware, mainly for the amount of mature standartized open source technologies available. Everything from coding (Eclipse, NetBeans, Idea) to manual (ant, maven) and automatic (teamcity, hudson/jenkins) builds, testing, static code analysis is there, is standartized, is open source, and is backed up by a multimillion size community.

I feel it necessary to say Visual Studio/C# (because OP mentioned as an alternative) offers everything you mentioned above with the exception of being open source. That said, the .NET Framework (or .NET Core) is now open source. Get information here. Based on your above comment, I think I can conclude that the only viable solutions are available through the open source community.

Quote I once heard that has a lot of truth: "It's only free if your time is worthless."

Also, counting the entirety of the open source community is a bogus argument. You'd have to take one development tool/API and compare the community support with another. For example, compare the community size/quality for Visual Studio with that of Eclipse. Or that of the .NET Framework vs. Java.

By the way, I've experienced no better intellisense implementation than with Visual Studio/Windows. When Eclipse does work you have rely on the quality of the open source libraries you reference to have anything meaningful. I've found the .NET Framework requires fewer 3rd party libraries than Java to accomplish the same goal.

Linux is the best server side platform for performance, stability, ease of maitenance, quality of the development environment - an extremely powerful command line based IDE. You can expect multimonth uptime from a Linux server, but not from Windows.

We have many Windows servers running services processing "big data" that have a system up-time since 5/30/2014 (nearly a year) and several more running without interruption since 2013. The only times we experience up-time problems is when hardware is aged/failing or the application-layer software we wrote contains bugs.

Tomcat/Servlet (or Jetty/Servlet) is a classic industrial combination in many financial institutions where stability is the #1 priority.

IIS is also used: job posting for IIS developer at financial institution

And lastly, the IO performance concern: a high quality user space non-blocking IO code will be CPU and hardware bandwidth bound, so OS will not be determining factor. Though fancy things like interrupts affinity, threads pinning, informed realtime tuning, kernel bypass I believe are easier to do on Linux.

Most of these variables are defined by each OS. It sounds like you have a lot of experience with threads, but also I would posit the developer can optimize at the application layer just as easily in both environments. Changing thread priority, implementing a custom thread pool, configuring BIOS, etc. are all available in the Windows world as well. Unless you want to customize the kernel which Unix/Linux allows, but then you have to support your own custom build of Unix/Linux.

I don't think commercial software should be vilified or avoided in favor of open source as a rule.

Upvotes: 6

bobah
bobah

Reputation: 18864

I understand this may sound as a groundless statement, but use *nix unless you have to use Windows. The only situation where you have to have Windows servers in your environment is when you choose MS SQL Server DBMS (it is almost a Sybase but is a way cheaper), in which case have Windows box for the DB and *nix server for middle tier.

Java is the best technology for millisecond grade middleware, mainly for the amount of mature standartized open source technologies available. Everything from coding (Eclipse, NetBeans, Idea) to manual (ant, maven) and automatic (teamcity, hudson/jenkins) builds, testing, static code analysis is there, is standartized, is open source, and is backed up by a multimillion size community.

Linux is the best server side platform for performance, stability, ease of maitenance, quality of the development environment - an extremely powerful command line based IDE. You can expect multimonth uptime from a Linux server, but not from Windows.

Tomcat/Servlet (or Jetty/Servlet) is a classic industrial combination in many financial institutions where stability is the #1 priority.

And lastly, the IO performance concern: a high quality user space non-blocking IO code will be CPU and hardware bandwidth bound, so OS will not be determining factor. Though fancy things like interrupts affinity, threads pinning, informed realtime tuning, kernel bypass I believe are easier to do on Linux.

Upvotes: 5

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