[squid-users] multiple squid 3.1.10 instances - independent vs frontend/backend

Hi guys,

I am using a couple of squid instances per server (Squid 3.1.0, RHEL
5.5, lots of RAM) and was wondering which would be the better
configuration? Better in that case means more performance.

Either
1) - 4 separate squid instances, each with its own completely
independent cache? (no cache hierarchy or something like that)
or
2) - a configuration similar to [1] with frontend and backend instances?

Does anybody have experiences with either of these two configurations?
We are currently using configuration #1 with 20 RPS/per instance and
load values of up to 8. It is not much, but we are authenticating with
Kerberos/NTLM/LDAP and even content filtering by ICAP. Load is pretty
high, but since we are using 16 CPUs per server, it is ok until up to
16. CPU usage stays pretty low (<20%), and disk IO is not an issue
(high IO idle values, very low IO wait values) too, I am wondering why
the load is that high.
What do you think, could configuration #2 improve performance (testing
it would be best, but it is not that easy with a live system)?

regards
Peter

[1] http://wiki.squid-cache.org/ConfigExamples/MultiCpuSystem
Received on Fri Jan 07 2011 - 18:57:01 MST