Stress and Load Testing?

[Barbara]

I am interested in knowing how many simultaneous users a Hal AIM bot can handle.  Has anyone done any stress and load testing?  How many simultaneous conversations can be handled with what size memory/CPU/bandwidth?

Any anecdoctal info would be appreciated.  

Barbara

[Medeksza]

The Hal itself program can handle many simultaneuous conversations. Unfortunetely AOL puts a limit on how many IMs you can send out and you'll definetely hit AOL's limit before you hit Hal's limit. I'm not sure what the exact limit is as it varies based on your current warning level and your warning level over the history of your account. AOL does this to prevent spam bots from sending IM's to thousands of people at once, but it also prevents legitamate bots like Hal from carrying on many simultaneous conversations.

[Barbara]

quote:Originally posted by Medeksza

 Unfortunetely AOL puts a limit on how many IMs you can send out and you'll definetely hit AOL's limit before you hit Hal's limit.

SmarterChild (from Active Buddy) reached some phenomenal number of users before it was taken down for consuming too many resources.  Was that subject to the same "AOL limits" as Hal is?

[Larry]

I gotta think SmarterChild is run from a very fast server. The common user like us have a much slower connection. So this would play a very important part in those numbers.

[Medeksza]

Its not so much the connection speed that limits the number of simultaneous connections, its an artificial limit by AOL. ActiveBuddy made a deal with AOL to remove the limit on their accounts. You would need to contact aol somehow and setup some sort of deal with them to get the limit removed for your Hal bot.