  Apache (CSWS) Webserver Performance? 
 The Question is:
 
Hi!
 
I have installed CSWS 1.2 on my Alpha server. Actualy I replaced Purveyor with
 CSWS. CSWS server's response is 2-3 times worse than Purveyor's. Are there any
 performance tuning guidelines available? I consider guidelines in CSWS
 documentation, but is ther
e something more?
 
 The Answer is :
 
  It is obviously quite difficult address performance problems without
  substantially more information and without performance data, but the
  OpenVMS Wizard will hazard guesses.
 
  The following are two of various performance-relevent considerations
  that exist for Apache (and CSWS):
 
  1. Enabling SSL adds considerable overhead during process startup for
  Apache (and CSWS). If SSL is enabled but not needed, then disable it.
 
  2. Apache (and CSWS) uses a "pre-forked" process model. This means it
  creates and maintains a pool of available server processes, and then
  dispatches incoming HTTP requests to these processes.  Apache (and CSWS)
  also strives to maintain a minimum number of idle server processes
  (MinSpareServers) that will be available to handle additional load.
  Further, as webserver load decreases, Apache (and CSWS) will delete
  idle server processes until the maximum number of idle server processes
  (MaxSpareServers) is reached.
 
  OpenVMS process creation is relatively expensive when compared to
  UNIX process creation, so one obvious approach involves increasing
  the number of servers that are started initially (StartServers) and
  set the MaxSpareServers value to reasonably reflect the number of
  incoming requests you expect the webserver to encounter on average.
 
  For example:
 
	StartServers 20
	MinSpareServers 5
	MaxSpareServers 30
 
  Twenty server processes will be initially started, five idle server
  processes will be kept as available as the load increases, and up to
  thirty idle server processes will be maintained.
 
  And as a general rule, please ensure that you have the current version
  of Apache (and CSWS) loaded and running.
 
 Answer written or last revised on  16-NOV-2002 
