Apache + MySQL solution for online tests!!

[matthew at matthewboehm.com]

> Roshan Sumbaly wrote:
>>  The software uses MySQL
>> backend and Apache web server. We had a mock test and realised that the
>> minute the number of students logging in increased to beyond 30, the
>> computer became slow and finally couldn't withstand it. Beyond 30
>> students
>> sitting at once the PHP pages failed to load and students couldn't log
>> in.
>> Luckily this was the mock exam!!
> 30? What on a ZX81? - Thats crazy you've either got a broken
> apache/mysql/php config (probably mySQL) or some hideously bad
> programming.

Agreed. If each student is submitting their "form" once every 3-10
seconds, you should certainly be able to handle all 300 students with one
decent machine. My company's web-conferencing platform can service over
1000 "students" connecting over a 30 second time period with a single
machine doing both web (apache/php/perl) AND mysql (2.8ghz xeon with HT,
1gb ram) with no problems.

-Matthew