Concurrent user capability

[HeroLeam 11]

Guys, how do I know how many users in simultaneous use my server can handle? Are there any calculations or systems to test this?

[Luke 42083]

Hi, it really just depends on your hardware, network, etc.

[visproduction 316]

That's an interesting question.  There are tools to monitor activity and create logs.  Each server OS has different software.  The highest demand for bandwidth delvery is downloading video content. Encoding can really take a lot of server / hardware use, locally, to prepare video content for uploading to users.   Another type of demand is user request for dbase sorting and then the server delivering rich media content, images and data.

Demand for video content downloading is further divided into:

• Actual server uploading content to the user
• The server encoding content for delivery, based on content codec and user demand.
• If the connection is slow for any reason, then depending on your settings, the video content could start encoding and put more demand on your server.
• Depending if you have hardware support or if it is all mostly CPU driven, encoding demand on the server varies a lot.
• Of course, there is also Internet access upload speed limit from your host contract.
• The server uses software or hardware: CPU, graphics card to upload content.
• Host upload bandwidth limit can be maxed out and could slow down any additional users experience
• Also, the video content bitrate will obviously makes a difference.  If you max out due to multiple requests at once, the users will start to experience buffering.

You could try to discover the bottle necks limits and run the numbers to give you possible upper limits for upload bandwidth vs. simultanous video upload streams for your different content bitrates.  The obvious option is to run any software that creates a log and watches for CPU, encoder, bandwidth, hitting maximums and compare that to the number of users logged in at that time.

Sorry, I haven't actually mentioned any software.  I think there are plug-ins to help. There is a forum channel for that. Have a look there.  Also, tell us the type of server you are using.  I think a lot of members here will have some favorite software to recommend.  I personally just run the numbers for best case and maximum use and I really don't have any bandwidth vs. member issues.

Something of interest,  all of the above can be handled by distributed network services for licensed content which could result in your server having extremely light use.  That could work, but I have not seen it discussed in the forum.  I actually use to set that up for clients when I was at Akamai technologies.  It would end up costing a lot.  The full copyright licensing and the cost means this solution is more for companies like Microsoft, or Sony studios which were two clients...  But it's possible.

Hope that helps.

Edited March 22, 2022 by visproduction

[HeroLeam 11]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, it really just depends on your hardware, network, etc.

I know it depends on that, your answer was shallow, I'm sorry.

[HeroLeam 11]

3 hours ago, visproduction said:

That's an interesting question.  There are tools to monitor activity and create logs.  Each server OS has different software.  The highest demand for bandwidth delvery is downloading video content. Encoding can really take a lot of server / hardware use, locally, to prepare video content for uploading to users.   Another type of demand is user request for dbase sorting and then the server delivering rich media content, images and data.

Demand for video content downloading is further divided into:

• Actual server uploading content to the user
• The server encoding content for delivery, based on content codec and user demand.
• If the connection is slow for any reason, then depending on your settings, the video content could start encoding and put more demand on your server.
• Depending if you have hardware support or if it is all mostly CPU driven, encoding demand on the server varies a lot.
• Of course, there is also Internet access upload speed limit from your host contract.
• The server uses software or hardware: CPU, graphics card to upload content.
• Host upload bandwidth limit can be maxed out and could slow down any additional users experience
• Also, the video content bitrate will obviously makes a difference.  If you max out due to multiple requests at once, the users will start to experience buffering.

You could try to discover the bottle necks limits and run the numbers to give you possible upper limits for upload bandwidth vs. simultanous video upload streams for your different content bitrates.  The obvious option is to run any software that creates a log and watches for CPU, encoder, bandwidth, hitting maximums and compare that to the number of users logged in at that time.

Sorry, I haven't actually mentioned any software.  I think there are plug-ins to help. There is a forum channel for that. Have a look there.  Also, tell us the type of server you are using.  I think a lot of members here will have some favorite software to recommend.  I personally just run the numbers for best case and maximum use and I really don't have any bandwidth vs. member issues.

Something of interest,  all of the above can be handled by distributed network services for licensed content which could result in your server having extremely light use.  That could work, but I have not seen it discussed in the forum.  I actually use to set that up for clients when I was at Akamai technologies.  It would end up costing a lot.  The full copyright licensing and the cost means this solution is more for companies like Microsoft, or Sony studios which were two clients...  But it's possible.

Hope that helps.

I understand, I know it depends on my bandwidth and cpu, but I wanted to know how much user I could sustain without having to create several users and test them all at the same time to know the amount I can have concurrent active users.

[Happy2Play 9783]

As many as you like assuming the setup can handle it. 

@igeoorgeCan you tell your experience?

[ebr 16187]

17 hours ago, HeroLeam said:

I understand, I know it depends on my bandwidth and cpu, but I wanted to know how much user I could sustain without having to create several users and test them all at the same time to know the amount I can have concurrent active users.

Hi.  This question simply has too many variables for us to give you a good answer so you will probably just have to test it.  You don't have to create multiple users though because the constraint isn't going to be the number of users but, rather, how much actual streaming is going on and if any of those sessions require transcoding.  If you are trying to maximize concurrent streaming, then you will want to be sure your media is direct playable by all of your users/devices/connections.

[HeroLeam 11]

7 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  This question simply has too many variables for us to give you a good answer so you will probably just have to test it.  You don't have to create multiple users though because the constraint isn't going to be the number of users but, rather, how much actual streaming is going on and if any of those sessions require transcoding.  If you are trying to maximize concurrent streaming, then you will want to be sure your media is direct playable by all of your users/devices/connections.

yes, I understand, if I open several estancias in chrome for example and run them all at the same time, is this ideal for testing, or would I need to test on several different ips?

[ebr 16187]

45 minutes ago, HeroLeam said:

yes, I understand, if I open several estancias in chrome for example and run them all at the same time, is this ideal for testing, or would I need to test on several different ips?

That depends on whether or not you are testing the full chain of what you really need to test.  If you are just trying to test the machine, then that's probably fine.  If, instead, you need to include network throughput you need to be sure you are testing across the target network(s).