Mac servers

[Peter Brueggeman]

Regarding msg from jhart at h5.avcnet.org (Jim Hart)
Subject: Re: Mac servers
"The Apple Internet Server has been a testbed for accessing 
FileMaker Pro databases from the Web, which may be most similar 
to what you are planning to do.  Based on the slowness of 
response I've seen, I would suggest that you get the biggest 
machine you can afford with as much memory as possible. 
Performance will be especially important if the Hypercard 
stacks and cgis aren't running constantly...."

Preston Holmes, pholmes at ucsd.edu, the Webmaster for my 
library's PowerMac Web server notes: 

For those writing CGIs for Mac servers you should really look 
into Frontier. 

It is free, PPC native, threaded and very flexible.  You can run 
many CGIs within Frontier (one application) and since it is 
threaded - it can process multiple requests to the same CGI at 
the same time. Its  performance with Filemaker is very good.  
Many of the problems with Mac Server CGIs are associated with 
the slowness and poor threading of Applescript.  Each CGI must 
be its own application. 

An example of a large (90,000 records, 20MB) Filemaker DB served 
on a PowerMac 6100 using Frontier for the CGI is at:

http://siolibrary.ucsd.edu/siofish/

This is running in only 8MB of real RAM which is slowing it down, 
but it is  still pretty fast.

More information about Frontier and Frontier CGIs:

http://www.hotwired.com/userland/aretha/

http://www.webedge.com/frontier/index.html

Preston Holmes, pholmes at ucsd.edu

=============================================================
Peter Brueggeman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library
University of Calif San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr, Dept 0175C
San Diego CA 92093-0175 USA
  pbrueggeman at ucsd.edu;       http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/
  Telephone: 619/534-1230;    Fax: 619/534-5269