scalable network architectures (was RE: [Mono-list] Mono fitness for ircd project)

[Michael Poole]

"Matt Liotta" <mliotta@r337.com> writes:

> With proper kernel support real-time signals should provide the most
> scalable network architecture.

Scalable by what metrics?  For maximum throughput, you do not want a
context switch every time there is new activity on a socket -- but
that is what signals like that give you.  (They will reduce average
latency.. until you saturate the CPU.)

Several OSs' /dev/poll and FreeBSD's kqueue() API will return sets of
N (>=1) active sockets at a time, which helps a lot if you have lots
of small requests going.  As in IRC.

-- Michael