Effects of Persistent Connections

Well, it looks as though enough clients are around for this to get
interesting.  For example, my server is now showing around 1% more
requests than transactions; all of the excess must be requests on
persistent connections.  I've also noticed a measureable increase in
throughput and an average response time drop.

It's interesting to note that the number of packets transmitted has
increased slightly (per request) from before; doubtless because
persistent connections require that TCPIP_NODELAY be set.  Has anyone
done any simulation of this side-effect?

(For live statistics on some of the above, try
http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/!statistics)

Mike Cowlishaw
IBM Fellow