From: ngmitche@mtu.edu (SuperNate I am!)
Subject: Re: How many clients to a server?
Organization: Michigan Technological University
Distribution: planetary
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 02:35:24 GMT
X-Posted-From: melab9.me.mtu.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

The general concensus of the discussion about servers seems to indicate that
a server will use at least as much bandwidth as 10 clients, and since the
server runs continually, will do so at all times.

I do not have a functioning server (although a fair number of people have
suggested that I make one), so I have no confirmed information to amend
this approximation, but would like to point out a few things.

An unloaded server might use the same bandwidth at most times of day as 10 
regular clients, but since the load caused by a server increases as clients
are added to it, the "break-even" point is probably closer to 12 when
a simple comparison of individual loads is made.

That is:  the loads (bytes, packets, whatever) of 12 clients is compared to
a comperable measurement of the load of a single server.  This provides a 
simple comparison, but still neglects certain facts.  In general, persons from
a local region will converse more with each other than with other users.
Also, such things as notify and channel modes might also be similar.  So for
those messages that are sent to several clients from a local region, it might
be more efficient to have a local server so that they will cross a long stretch
of the net only one time.  This will once again change the "break-even" point
in the opposite direction, but probably not below 8.  (8 clients == 1 server)

The chief concern of any site running a server is the load on that site's link
at PEAK hours.  Since the load on the site will almost NEVER be less than
that of 8 clients unless there are VERY few people on all of IRC a simple
suggestion is just don't run IRC at peak times of network use.  Sure it's not
as nice as getting a server running and having savings from going to 20 clients
to the equivalent of 10, but getting the number of clients down to less than
10 during peak hours will show net savings without the hassle, work, and off-
peak constant load of a server.  No IRC between 1400-1700 for instance.

Peak IRC hours aren't usually at the same time as peak network hours (thank
god)  so it might not REALLY be a killer problem.  That is, the server
won't be bogged by keeping track of a zillion users at the same time that 
everyone and their brother at a site is ftping, emailing, (even ircing), 
telnetting, etc.

If I don't see at LEAST 8 clients during peak hours, I don't need to make a 
server and since MTU has a policy disallowing IRC at any time that might be
construed as "high-network-usage", I sure hope that I don't EVER see that 
many IRCers from tech at those times.  I would like to continue to use IRC
and not have it squelched because a few individuals cannot respect the limits
of the resources available to students here.  I can think of one person who
ran IRC when his department's mainframe was down to 4M and swapping to a floppy-
drive or some rediculous situation like that--and YES, it was during a time 
that MTU policy would ordinarily disallow IRC.  What bugs me most is that _I_
set up the client on that mainframe and before I did so, I specifically asked
that user to talk with the director of that department's computing facility so
that he would be fully aware and cognizant of the policy.  (yeah, right!)
   
All that I have mentioned is just stuff to consider.  I'm not a computer whiz 
or a networking whiz.  I've only used real computers a little less than a year,
but at least my default server list for the client I maintain uses servers
that are topologically close, reliable, capable and have consistently small
ping times..

--
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