I propose a change to the FAQ and closing policy: I'd like to see all of the benchmarking questions closed with prejudice; I'm tired of seeing them. In my mind, the answer is almost always the same: >Put your scenario in place, add monitoring, add traffic, evaluate results. Modify based on results. Rinse. Repeat. Add to the FAQ that questions ranging from the awful > "[how][1] [many][2] [users][3] [can a][4] [web][5] [server][6] > [take][7]" to the specific > "I have a 42U rack with maxed-out HP Proliant DL360 G8's; how many > concurrent users will that support running [app environment] on [platform]" are going to be closed, because each application and environment is a unique and (more often ugly than beautiful) snowflake. You need to test your particular snow-flakey circumstances. ---- This is not to say that questions about poor performance shouldn't be allowed. "I'm running XYZ on ABC with CMYK and I'm RGB is slower than I'd expect. What should I check and what could I do to mitigate?" seems like a reasonable question to me... [1]: http://serverfault.com/q/164/50875 [2]: http://serverfault.com/q/75680/50875 [3]: http://serverfault.com/q/74580/50875 [4]: http://serverfault.com/q/181141/50875 [5]: http://serverfault.com/q/298087/50875 [6]: http://serverfault.com/q/217861/50875 [7]: http://serverfault.com/q/314710/50875