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Java Forum / General / December 2005SOAP Performance - Really so slow ?
>From my simple performance tests of SOAP it seems that it is about ten times slower than binary object request protocols such as RMI, IIOP or SimpleORB. Is this also YOUR experience ? I think, that everybody will have the same experience, because using SOAP means that you will get more data then in binary mode. And if data size is larger then network transfer of this data will be slow... However, the flavor of SOAP is interoperability with different systems ( e.g. you can have web service written in Java and clients on .NET or vice versa ). If interoprability is not your goal then it is better to use binary protocols...  SignatureVadym Stetsyak aka Vadmyst http://vadmyst.blogspot.com > >From my simple performance tests of SOAP it seems that it is about ten > times slower than binary object request protocols such as RMI, IIOP or > SimpleORB. > Is this also YOUR experience ? ...not to mention that serialization / deserialization will be slower, and the routing of the request on the server side will be much slower. As Vadym says, what SOAP (Web Services) give you is interoperability: the option to use various technologies for your clients, now or in the future. Binary protocols are definitely faster, but they lock you into having a .NET server and .NET clients forever.... If you want the advantages of interoperability AND the performance of a binary protocol, then J-Integra is the solution. J-Integra offers interoperability between .NET, Java, COM, and Corba applications without the overhead of Web Services. The following whitepaper summarizes a performance analysis of using J-Integra versus Web Services for Java .NET interop... http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/pdfs/whitepaper_performance_summary.pdf Shane Sauer J-Integra Interoperability Solutions http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/ high performance interop middleware for java, corba, com & .net > If you want the advantages of interoperability AND the performance of a > binary protocol, then J-Integra is the solution. J-Integra offers [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/ > high performance interop middleware for java, corba, com & .net or there's ICE - http://www.zeroc.com/performance/index.html which has the benefits of Corba without the rubbish and is highly efficient too. Andrew On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:16:31 +0000, Andrew McDonagh <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : > http://www.zeroc.com/performance/index.html is that the right url? SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. > On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:16:31 +0000, Andrew McDonagh > <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > is that the right url? yeah works for me - is not for you? >> If you want the advantages of interoperability AND the performance of a >> binary protocol, then J-Integra is the solution. J-Integra offers [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > which has the benefits of Corba without the rubbish and is highly > efficient too. It hasn't got the benefits of CORBA as it is *no standard*. There's only _one_ implementation of ICE, being the one that ZeroC provides. And in fact, I found it highly disappointing that ZeroC did not just introduce a new nicer IDL C++ mapping for CORBA. With friendly regards, Takis >>>If you want the advantages of interoperability AND the performance of a >>>binary protocol, then J-Integra is the solution. J-Integra offers [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > It hasn't got the benefits of CORBA as it is *no standard*. Benefits do not equal standards - or why else would we have POAs? I've worked on enough telecoms projects which use lots of ratified standards and each equipment manufacture implements those 'standards' differently. > There's only > _one_ implementation of ICE, being the one that ZeroC provides. > > And in fact, I found it highly disappointing that ZeroC did not just > introduce a new nicer IDL C++ mapping for CORBA. Agreed - but ICE does a little more than that. > With friendly regards, > Takis >>>or there's ICE - http://www.zeroc.com/performance/index.html >>> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Benefits do not equal standards - or why else would we have POAs? Well, yes, but by accepting the POAs you get portability, and thus you get choice of middleware implementation and choice of middleware vendor/support. > I've worked on enough telecoms projects which use lots of ratified > standards and each equipment manufacture implements those 'standards' > differently. But does dumping all standards solve anything? When I program according to the POSIX threading specs or to the CORBA 2.6 specs, I can migrate my application from one environment to another. Not without any changes, but still easier then when I had programmed to a proprietary interface. They could have dumped the parts they didn't like, and which really made a difference. But instead, they decided to write an "entirely new" middleware stack... which _strongly_ resembles the existing standard, but is different (mostly simplified). >> There's only >> _one_ implementation of ICE, being the one that ZeroC provides. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >> > Agreed - but ICE does a little more than that. If I were to believe their marketing page, it is the problem free solution to all our problems, being efficient, scalable, easy and all other great things. On that same marketing page, they critisize CORBA for having many specs being only implemented by "few" vendors. How many vendors implement ICE? And this worries me too: "Ice supports C++, Java, Python, PHP, C#, and Visual Basic. We are not aware of any CORBA company that offers so much choice. In fact, most CORBA vendors only offer C++ and Java. If you want to use other languages, you have switch to different vendors, or consider using unsupported experimental CORBA implementations." In their mindset it is a problem if you have to rely on different vendors for different software solutions: If you choose CORBA and want to use multiple languages, you'll have to use products of many vendors. While if you choose ICE, ZeroC can provide all your needs. Sounds very Microsoftish. I would prefer to read that as: If you choose ZeroC you can only have _one_ vendor: ZeroC. With friendly regards, Takis > Binary protocols are definitely faster, but they lock you into having a > .NET server and .NET clients forever.... Really? Actually I think binary protocols were used a long time before .Net was invented. > > Binary protocols are definitely faster, but they lock you into having a > > .NET server and .NET clients forever.... > > Really? Actually I think binary protocols were used a long time before > .Net was invented. Yes, of course, but binary protocols tend to be technology-specific. If you use RMI in Java then you are pretty-much stuck with having a Java client and a Java server (or at least a server that speaks RMI). If you use .NET Remoting then you are pretty-much stuck with writing all of your clients in .NET. Since the post was in a C# newgroup, I assumed that the OP would write at least one part of the system in C#, and therefore if the OP were to use a binary protocol it is a practical necessity that all other parties in the communication also be .NET. Of course, in theory this isn't really true. One could try to write a Java client for .NET Remoting, for example, but I shudder at the thought... you'd have to be a masochist to take that one on. So, yes, I know that binary protocols were used a long time before .NET was invented. Binary protocols came first... before any other kind of protocol. However, I didn't really consider that pertienent to the discussion. :-) >> Really? Actually I think binary protocols were used a long time before >> .Net was invented. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > use .NET Remoting then you are pretty-much stuck with writing all of > your clients in .NET. Yes, .Net is a Microsoft only solution, which will lock you into Microsoft solutions and thus give you zero freedom of choice afterwards. RMI is a nicer solutions since there are multiple vendors. But the obvious solution for binary protocols is using IIOP (CORBA). It is an open standard specified by the OMG being implemented by many vendors. So if you choose for CORBA, you'll get freedom of choice. Which is ofcourse not surprising, as choosing a standard has the obvious result of giving you freedom of choice of a particular implementation. With friendly regards, Takis Ah. I see now that the OP cross-posted into a Java newsgroup. I hadn't noticed that at first (the sins of using Google Groups). My apologies to the Java folk for implying that "binary protocol = .NET"... it was a problem of context. :-) > Ah. I see now that the OP cross-posted into a Java newsgroup. I hadn't > noticed that at first (the sins of using Google Groups). My apologies > to the Java folk for implying that "binary protocol = .NET"... it was a > problem of context. :-) Exactly. And I just realized it was posted on a .net-group too :-) My point was merely that big bad binary protocol isn't just a dot-net thingie. RMI and EJB-remoting is just as binary in the Java world. Signaturejon martin solaas >> Ah. I see now that the OP cross-posted into a Java newsgroup. I hadn't >> noticed that at first (the sins of using Google Groups). My apologies [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > point was merely that big bad binary protocol isn't just a dot-net > thingie. RMI and EJB-remoting is just as binary in the Java world. Binary protocols are not "big bad" things. They are efficient and pretty things if and only if they are openly specified :) Then there's no reason for interoperability issues. With friendly regards, Takis Hi, > I think, that everybody will have the same experience, because using SOAP > means that you will get more data then in binary mode. And if data size is [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > If interoprability is not your goal then it is better to use binary > protocols... Binary protocols or formats _do not_ prevent interoperability. The TCP/IP stack is binary, the JPEG format is binary and numerous other formats are binary and perfectly interoperable. The only thing that using non-binary formats buy you is being able to use a "textviewer" to watch the protocol on the wire (apps like cat, grep, more on Unix systems). Being CORBA 2.x compliant requires supporting IIOP and thus 2.x compliant CORBA implementations are interoperable. CORBA implementations are available for numerous platforms (read: all) and numerous programming languages. The only reason SOAP is getting successful is because Microsoft's refused to support the OMG standard. So now we'll have a new, albeit very ineffecient "standard" protocol being SOAP. With friendly regards, Takis On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:15:54 +0100, Panagiotis Issaris <takis@issaris.org> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : >Binary protocols or formats _do not_ prevent interoperability. The TCP/IP >stack is binary, the JPEG format is binary and numerous other formats are >binary and perfectly interoperable. The nice thing about binary formats is they are specified down to the bit. With any character based protocol there is always the ambiguity of what encoding s supposed to be used. And even if the standard has the balls to demand it, GUARANTEED you will soon find documents floating about the universe with every encoding under the sun with unmarked or mislabeled encodings. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. >Yes, .Net is a Microsoft only solution, which will lock you into Microsoft >solutions and thus give you zero freedom of choice afterwards. Not necessarily. Interoperability middleware solutions such as J-Integra allow you to use Microsoft .NET/COM technology with Java and Corba. >But the obvious solution for binary protocols is using IIOP (CORBA). It is >an open standard specified by the OMG being implemented by many vendors. >So if you choose for CORBA, you'll get freedom of choice. Which is >ofcourse not surprising, as choosing a standard has the obvious result of >giving you freedom of choice of a particular implementation. J-Integra Espresso is a Corba ORB for the .NET platform that allows your .NET clients to "talk" IIOP to Java/Corba servers. Middleware solutions such as this allow you to use Microsoft .NET without worrying as much about vendor lock-in. Shane Sauer J-Integra Interoperability Solutions http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/ high performance interop middleware for java, corba, com & .net >>Yes, .Net is a Microsoft only solution, which will lock you into Microsoft >>solutions and thus give you zero freedom of choice afterwards. > >Not necessarily. Interoperability middleware solutions such as >J-Integra allow you to use Microsoft .NET/COM technology with Java and >Corba. I don't see how that follows. If you use .NET, you are locked into MS no matter what tools you used. Are you saying at least your Java side code can be flipped to something else with a config parm, rather than redesigning code? SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. Having "legacy" applications written in COM or .NET does not necessarily mean you *HAVE* to choose Microsoft technologies for future development. There is a great deal of interop middleware out there which allows you to expand your infrastructure with a different technology without losing the ability to communicate with your old Microsoft apps (or vice versa). J-Integra is one example of a middleware solution which provides interoperability between COM/.NET and Java/Corba. Shane Sauer J-Integra Interoperability Solutions http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/ high performance interop middleware for java, corba, com & .net > >From my simple performance tests of SOAP it seems that it is about ten > times slower than binary object request protocols such as RMI, IIOP or > SimpleORB. Is this also YOUR experience ? We had such problems at one point, then realized that we were doing a SOAP call for simple data accessors. Once we bundled up the calls to be somewhat higher level - returning whole collections of local objects, for example, the overhead dropped to where we were willing to use SOAP. If you are doing something very simple, RMI is going to just scream by comparison to SOAP. Scott SignatureScott Ellsworth scott@alodar.nospam.com Java and database consulting for the life sciences >>From my simple performance tests of SOAP it seems that it is about ten >times slower than binary object request protocols such as RMI, IIOP or >SimpleORB. >Is this also YOUR experience ? Just consider what goes down the wire for a SOAP int. <sometag>12345</sometag> = 24 chars. vs two binary bytes. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. It's always the same: "Industry Standards" are propagated, regardless of actual performance or suitability. Just because SOAP is the hype, all major vendors seem to promote it, without even thinking about alternatives.... Publishing a "custom" client class library (for all major programming languages) instead of WSDL would provide a tenfold better performance. I wonder when the anti-SOAP backlash will happen.... > It's always the same: "Industry Standards" are propagated, regardless > of actual performance or suitability. Just because SOAP is the hype, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > languages) instead of WSDL would provide a tenfold better performance. > I wonder when the anti-SOAP backlash will happen.... sure a custom or lightweight standard would give much higher performance, but then we run into all kinds of problem areas: technology - .net apps talking to mainframes... Platform mapping - endianness Language mapping - Java int is signed 32 bits, C++ has un/signed 1/2/4 bits depending upon complier. etc... All of these areas have been addressed in various ways by the various comms standards: DCOM, CORBA, RMI, SOAP, etc.. Hell, most of the custom lightweight standards I've seen go over TCP/IP, yet there are times when its preferable for sending data over raw UPD sockets (as I've had to do in real time Telecoms apps). What this boils down to, is that there is no 'Right' or 'OneTrue' way. Each application needs to chose the right distributed technology for its own characteristics. Soap allows multiple different technologies, languages, platforms and environments to communicate via a neutral 'self describing' means - but this comes with a price - as you say slow performance. but keep in mind, this slow performance may not actually be the bottle neck within the system, so 'curing' it would be a false victory. Andrew On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:14:00 +0000, Andrew McDonagh <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said : >What this boils down to, is that there is no 'Right' or 'OneTrue' way. Correct, but there are some ways that deserve to die they are so inept. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. > On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:14:00 +0000, Andrew McDonagh > <news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. > http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. Be that as it may, I beg to differ that SOAP / Web Services is one of those "inept" ways that deserves to die. In our case, for example, SOAP / Web Services is a godsend. We have a legacy back-end consisting of millions of lines of code, and no, we're not about to rewrite the thing in Java or C# just to make purists happy. Web Services is the first thing we've seen that could open up our closed mainframe-style architecture and start delivering some results. Is it inefficient compared to binary protocols? Yup. However, it's also the only practical way to deal with a heterogeneous environment. Binary protocols are efficient and easy to work with until you come up against a system that has different parts written in different languages. Then they quickly become a nightmare. For all of its inefficiencies and problems, SOAP doesn't suffer from that one critical flaw. Sure, there may be a "SOAP backlash" coming from twits who use the technology for absolutely everything, including inter-process communication. However, the technology does fill a niche (and a huge niche it is) that RMI, Remoting, etc. have never been able to adequately address. I think that SOAP / Web Services are here to stay. >>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:14:00 +0000, Andrew McDonagh >><news@andrewcdonagh.f2s.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Be that as it may, I beg to differ that SOAP / Web Services is one of > those "inept" ways that deserves to die. Agreed - > In our case, for example, SOAP / Web Services is a godsend. We have a > legacy back-end consisting of millions of lines of code, and no, we're [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > niche it is) that RMI, Remoting, etc. have never been able to > adequately address. I think that SOAP / Web Services are here to stay. Those twits are usually (though not always) the same people who abuse all distributed messaging technologies by creating tiny methods that pull or push singular atomic data values between two points. Early CORBA days were full of people creating Business Object models that had the objects residing anywhere and then having set/gets & normal methods on those objects. And they wondered why it did run very quickly????? Even with SOAP I see people making this fundamental mistake. Andrew >Binary protocols are efficient and easy to work with until you come up >against a system that has different parts written in different >languages. Then they quickly become a nightmare. For all of its >inefficiencies and problems, SOAP doesn't suffer from that one critical >flaw. A soap creator/parser is much more complex that a package to deal with the wrong endianness of data. Just count lines of code to convert binary to char to byte to char to binary compared with little endian to big endian network order. Soap has an illusion of simplicity because it is easy for humans to deal with, but it is not humans dealing with it. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. > >Binary protocols are efficient and easy to work with until you come up > >against a system that has different parts written in different [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > binary to char to byte to char to binary compared with little endian > to big endian network order. But it's not about just big-endian versus little-endian and low-level concerns like that. My point is that tools and frameworks for producing / consuming SOAP / Web Services on all sorts of platforms and languages are sprouting up like mushrooms. I don't have to write the bare-bones code that worries about serialization, transport, and even (latterly) security and encryption because it's all being done for me by hundreds of vendors. The beauty of SOAP / WS isn't that it's easy for any particular vendor to support it on any particular platform. In fact, as you pointed out, it's not: it's bloody difficult, and getting more difficult by the month as higher and higher level standards are created. Instead, the beauty of SOAP / WS is that I as a consumer can buy an application server that is designed to run services written in Java from one vendor and a client platform for .NET clients from another vendor and the two work together. CORBA never managed to get that much market penetration. So far as I know the field of players trying to do that sort of thing with RMI or .NET Remoting is thin indeed. If I can grab products off the shelf and have them interoperate out of the box, I don't care how much of a pain it was for the vendor to create them. I'm happy. I'm even happier when vendor #1's client platform turns out to be crap and I can just dump it and substitute another platform from a competing vendor and it still works with my server-side Web Services. I like the security of knowing that my whole system doesn't live or die based on one vendor's ability to deliver, or even one language's ability to deliver. As well, my business partners can choose their own platforms and languages and call my Web Services without knowing or caring what language they're written in. Try doing that with .NET Remoting. There's nothing wrong with RMI / Remoting / CORBA / whatever. They're great technologies. However, they just don't have the vast market penetration that Web Services is shaping up to have. As I said, if interoperability between heterogeneous platforms is high on my list of requirements, I probably won't be considering Java RMI as my protocol. If I'm in a closed, all-Java shop, then that changes everything. Use the right tool for the right job... and there are many jobs for which SOAP is the right tool. >Instead, the beauty of SOAP / WS is that I as a consumer can buy an >application server that is designed to run services written in Java >from one vendor and a client platform for .NET clients from another >vendor and the two work together. that is also true of CORBA or messages defined by ASN.1. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. Bruce Wood sez: ... > Instead, the beauty of SOAP / WS is that I as a consumer can buy an > application server that is designed to run services written in Java > from one vendor and a client platform for .NET clients from another > vendor and the two work together. Uh-huh. The beauty of windows is that a consumer can buy a windows peecee and go whenever he wants to today by just clicking on the "Start" button. When I become the Evil Overlord I'll have every SOAPophiliac do 3 years of system administration in heterogeneous environment before they're allowed to comment on "ease" of SOAP. Dima Signature... If you want to make sure you don't put a Pig in a List of airplanes and have it fail at insertion rather than extraction, use planelist.add((Airplane)o) instead of planelist.add(o). It's that easy. -- Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes Hi, > There's nothing wrong with RMI / Remoting / CORBA / whatever. They're > great technologies. However, they just don't have the vast market > penetration that Web Services is shaping up to have. As I said, if I depends on what you mean with market penetration. As the standard Java classlibraries have been including a CORBA implementation for years, I think CORBA has been around and available for a long time. Before that, Netscape included the Visibroker ORB in Navigator. So, frankly, I do not think it is market penetration that causes people to choose SOAP over CORBA. Personally, I think it is marketing, hype and buzzwords working. If SOAP had not been XML based, but a plain humanly readable (ASCII or UTF-8) protocol, it wouldn't have been as popular as it is now. And from most people, that's exactly what they claim is so great about SOAP and XML-RPC. And actually, I don't really by into that argument either, as a nice protocol analyzer (such as Ethereal) shows this info in a much more human friendly form than looking at plain SOAP data. The only nice thing about it imho, is that it works out of the box on HTTP, making it easier to deploy then CORBA based applications. But, in fact the reasoning behind this seems kind of strange too: Sysadmins block everything but port 80, 'cause hey, there's "only HTML/static content" passing through that port. And don't ask to open any other ports to put a custom server online, because that's a security hazard. But now, people hook up whatever servers they want behind a dispatcher at port 80, and now people seem to believe there's no hazard involved... > interoperability between heterogeneous platforms is high on my list of > requirements, I probably won't be considering Java RMI as my protocol. No, surely not: It sound like the prototype problem for a CORBA based solution. > If I'm in a closed, all-Java shop, then that changes everything. Use > the right tool for the right job... and there are many jobs for which > SOAP is the right tool. With friendly regards, Takis > >From my simple performance tests of SOAP it seems that it is about ten > times slower than binary object request protocols such as RMI, IIOP or > SimpleORB. > Is this also YOUR experience ? Can you quantify your results? Thanks, Mike A hello-world (with one String as parameter) SOAP application was at about 140 calls/sec when running the client and the server on the same PC (2 GHz Athlon). RMI and SimpleORB would be at about 1600 calls/sec with the same helloworld app, on the same machine. This means that SOAP is an order of a magnitude slower than competing technologies... Regarding interoperability: CORBA and technologies like SimpleORB ARE cross-platform, they might only need an http "converter" so that they can tunnel through firewalls. Hi, Well, this is an extremely non-real-word :) benchmark, that would work for cases where the request takes zero time at the server side, which is not a common case, or is simply caused by a design flaw. You say that you get 140 SOAP calls / sec = cca 7 ms per call, and 1600 RMI calls = cca 0.6 ms. But should the request take 10 ms to complete at the server, the difference would be 17 ms vs. 10.6 ms, less than two-fold. With a 100 ms request, this would be 107 ms compared to 100.6 ms, a difference that's completely negligible compared to the benefits provided by SOAP. Just my 2c. Stefan > A hello-world (with one String as parameter) SOAP application was at > about 140 calls/sec when running the client and the server on the same [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > cross-platform, they might only need an http "converter" so that they > can tunnel through firewalls. > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >> cross-platform, they might only need an http "converter" so that they >> can tunnel through firewalls. :-) Nice! Potentially WRONG: Real-world requests will transfer much more data, which produces a VERY lengthy SOAP message. SOAP is not just a huge envelope around efficiently encoded data, but a lengthy envelope that contains lenghty data structures. Just look at the encoding of an integer: <Integer xmlns="urn:vwservices">1</Integer> That is 40 bytes for a single integer - about a factor of ten (actually 40 if intelligently encoded) worse than CORBA. This means that multi-object messages are ALSO inefficient, because each object/value if inefficiently encoded. > Potentially WRONG: Real-world requests will transfer much more data, > which produces a VERY lengthy SOAP message. SOAP is not just a huge [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > This means that multi-object messages are ALSO inefficient, because > each object/value if inefficiently encoded. hmmm couldn't this be easily solved by compression?? >> Potentially WRONG: Real-world requests will transfer much more data, >> which produces a VERY lengthy SOAP message. SOAP is not just a huge [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > hmmm couldn't this be easily solved by compression?? http://www.osmoticweb.com/axis-soap-compression.htm >>> Potentially WRONG: Real-world requests will transfer much more data, >>> which produces a VERY lengthy SOAP message. SOAP is not just a huge [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > http://www.osmoticweb.com/axis-soap-compression.htm http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-sqzsoap.html >> <Integer xmlns="urn:vwservices">1</Integer> >> That is 40 bytes for a single integer - about a factor of ten (actually [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >hmmm couldn't this be easily solved by compression?? Let's say you got 50% compression. You are down to 20 bytes per integer verses 2. AND you have yet another cpu intensive step at both ends. SignatureCanadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching. > >> <Integer xmlns="urn:vwservices">1</Integer> > >> That is 40 bytes for a single integer - about a factor of ten (actually [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > integer verses 2. AND you have yet another cpu intensive step at both > ends. I plan to use it with AJAX, so the client-side cpu loading isn't important, and the compression rate should be much higher than 50% usually (most data transfered will be xml tags...). Besides, if I dont use SOAP, what else can I choose?? IIOP over HTTP? > I plan to use it with AJAX, so the client-side cpu loading isn't > important, and the compression rate should be much higher than 50% > usually (most data transfered will be xml tags...). Besides, if I dont > use SOAP, what else can I choose?? IIOP over HTTP? Aren't most remoting protocol networkable? Signaturejon martin solaas > > I plan to use it with AJAX, so the client-side cpu loading isn't > > important, and the compression rate should be much higher than 50% > > usually (most data transfered will be xml tags...). Besides, if I dont > > use SOAP, what else can I choose?? IIOP over HTTP? > > Aren't most remoting protocol networkable? Yes but XMLHttpRequest works with HTTP only.... > Let's say you got 50% compression. You are down to 20 bytes per > integer verses 2. AND you have yet another cpu intensive step at both > ends. With a suitable encoding, the protocol can be compacted by 80% while reducing CPU load. http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/WebServices/fastWS/ Tom Hawtin SignatureUnemployed English Java programmer http://jroller.com/page/tackline/ >hmmm couldn't this be easily solved by compression?? But then it becomes a binary protocol and you might as well just start out with a binary one in the first place. Cheers Bent D SignatureBent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd powered by emacs > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Just my 2c. Or slightly rephrased - If the server takes forever to answer, the protocol is irrelevant. And if you consider message size and payload also, suddenly protocol isn't that irrelevant again. Funny isn't it? Signaturejon martin solaas >> Hi, >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > And if you consider message size and payload also, suddenly protocol isn't > that irrelevant again. Funny isn't it? And what about routing, isn't that also a factor? Isn't it really hard to benchmark something that is not deterministic? (I know you can run lots of tests and that will tend to flatten some of the peaks and valleys.) Mike Everything I've ever heard about SOAP / Web Services says the same thing: the protocol is heavyweight, so do everything you can to make fewer calls and ship more information across the wire on each call. We know that we have to design differently for WS than we would if we were using a binary protocol. Your "Hello World" app benchmark doesn't surprise me. In fact, it just re-enforces what I had already heard. This doesn't mean that the protocol is crap. All it means is that you have to keep in mind its strengths and weaknesses when evaluating it and if you decide to start writing code and using it. So, yes, SOAP / WS has the weakness that each call carries with it a lot of overhead. Tons of overhead. Its strength is that it's highly interoperable. For highly interactive applications where the server and all clients use the same language, SOAP / WS is probably not a smart way to go. For applications that send few messages, each containing potentially large amounts of data, high chance of flux in the data contents, and widely varying technologies on the client side, SOAP / WS is probably your best choice. It all depends upon what you're trying to do and in what context. >so do everything you can to make > fewer calls and ship more information across the wire on each call. We > know that we have to design differently for WS than we would if we were > using a binary protocol. Could you elaborate a tad? Just what can be done? Also, I'm not sure how to determine when a WS should be used over some other techology. If I my business uses a Java server, then just use a Java technology to pass the data. Is that how you are determining which to use? What would be some other factors? Thanks, Mike > >so do everything you can to make > > fewer calls and ship more information across the wire on each call. We > > know that we have to design differently for WS than we would if we were > > using a binary protocol. > > Could you elaborate a tad? Just what can be done? Well, for example, the gurus recommend that Web Services be stateless. That, along with the knowledge that each call carries a lot of overhead makes us prefer to make one call to search for stock items and return the whole list to the client, rather than writing a "get first / get next" style interface. We also offer client programs fewer options as to how much information is returned for each item, because it's better to return more info than the client wanted than to have a client calling over and over again to get progressively more information about a particular item. "Return the entire result, and return enough or more than enough information about each item on one call" is the philosophy we're running with for now. If we were running a binary interface we might have done it differently: make more calls to finer-grained routines on the server side. > Also, I'm not sure how to determine when a WS should be used over some > other techology. If I my business uses a Java server, then just use a Java > technology to pass the data. Is that how you are determining which to use? > What would be some other factors? I think of it this way: If I have a server running Java, and I'm pretty sure that all of my clients, now and in the future, will either be Java clients or browser-based clients (which could be served by a Java-based Web server), then I would go with RMI, knowing that that would, for all practical purposes, lock me into Java forever. I would get much better performance and it would be easier to make the whole thing work. The price I pay is that if my bosses ever come to me and say that they want me to write a C# client on a Windows handheld then I'm in a bit of trouble. (At that point I would either talk them out of it or build Web Services on top of the Java server framework and use those, but I wouldn't really be leveraging all of that RMI investment.) Lots of shops are one-language shops, and in that environment there's really no reason to incur the performance penalties of Web Services. If, on the other hand, there is a reasonable likelihood that I'll be dealing with all sorts of clients, and browser-based won't cut it (so I would need to deploy client apps on various client platforms), then I'd seriously consider Web Services because of the interoperability, even though the performance sucks (comparatively) and in some cases it's not as solid as some of the binary protocols (depending upon whose app server you're using). In our case, it's our server side that's the problem. Our choices there are extremely limited... basically it's Web Services or nothing for us on the server side. I got 1600 calls/s with RMI or SimpleORB and about 140 calls/s with SOAP. Application was hello-world with one String as argument. Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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