Problem Set 5 - Scalability

In the previous problem set, we took the application we had developed in problem set 3, and made it more usable. In this problem set we will learn how to create scalable web applications

pset: Take the web application you have with you in problem set 4, and make some requests to it. Measure the time it takes for the application to provide responses. Now seed it with huge data, and again measure the time it took to make responses. Did the response time suffer? Try to make it faster by tweaking your queries. Now try to make it faster by adding a cache. Next simulate thousands of users accessing your application at the same time. Does the response time suffer? Can you make it faster?

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the notion of scalability
• Understand how data and queries affect the response time of an application
• Understand how we can make the application faster by using a cache
• Understand how the number of simultaneous hits can affect the response time of an application
• Understand how we can use clustering to improve the response time
• Find out if using a no-sql database will improve the scalability of your application