Re: Process vs Thread: what are the consequences?
Qu0ll wrote:
I have a server-based "engine" and I would like to know the best way to
maximise its effectiveness. In the general sense, if I wish to deploy
multiple instances of this engine to improve processing throughput,
would it be better to have each engine running as a fully-fledged OS
process in its own JVM or as a separate thread in some master process
(and thus sharing a JVM)? I know this isn't much detail to go on but I
am just after some conceptual information at this stage.
I would think the most effective way is to have the engine in one JVM,
using multiple threads, although that could depend on the JVM you use.
If memory serves, JVMs on Linux will actually create an OS level
sub-process for every Thread spawned.
Alternatively, you might consider going a step further. One Server
instance can have multiple threads, and you can have multiple servers
living on different physical devices. This assumes that you can
effectively parallelize your computations across these separate instances.
In any case, I think that there would be at least as much overhead, if
not more, to creating two JVM instances than one JVM instance with two
threads.
Your final solution is more likely to depend on the amount of
inter-process/thread communication you're engine is going to need.
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