500s as server, how many clients ?

[rljutter]

Running a dreambox 500s as a server, how many clients could be run from this without getting pic beakup problems ?

I know each ecm info requested is 16bytes so 7.5kb's per client per hr which is next to nothing but there must be a point where the dm500s can only handle so many requests ? ........... any ideas ??

 

[Mark_The_Yid]

I'm not an expert on this but the actual limit of clients I believe revolves around the card itself. I think a general rule of thumb for a basic server with with white card is 10-20

 

[Superflous]

I've about 14 peers connected to my dm500c as a satellite server, half of them in foreign lands (for exchanging cards) and the other half for family. I literally get about 4 or maybe 5 people using the card at any one time and when I'm down in my mothers house I never notice a single glitch, and certainly get no glitches on my own local boxes. I reckon it could probably handle twice the amount of peers providing it sticks to around the same activity levels.

 

[rljutter]

Will be a while before i'm anywhere nr that level of clients, but if i do whats the next stage a better server ( receiver ) or pc based server ??

 

[Superflous]

I believe the bottleneck at that stage will be the usage limits of the card itself rather than the reader hardware. I would suggest only looking to upgrade to a PC based server if you wish to have multiple cards being served.

 

[rljutter]

So its the cards that have limits? , i asummed the card was read once by the server and then shared with others, i take it the card is read by each client upon each ecm ?

 

[nozzer]

So its the cards that have limits? , i asummed the card was read once by the server and then shared with others, i take it the card is read by each client upon each ecm ?

On a dreambox type setup, every client effectively talks directly to the card as though it were plugged into their own box. The exception to this is when multiple clients are viewing the same channel at the same time. In that case the server software is usually smart enough to cache the answer for the second and subsequent cards.

You have to remember that every single channel requires its own unique ecm answer. If you have 20 clients all watching one channel then the card will get little load (as it will only have to answer 1 ecm request) but if all your clients are watching different channels then the card will get 20 ecm requests. This means you CANNOT accurately predict the average card loading based simply on the number of clients, you have to know something about the clients actual viewing habits !

This is where a lot of server operators go wrong. They load up clients until they see things start to go wrong and then back up slightly thinking they have it figured. You have to look much more deeply than that and suss what the card is capable of, and then plan for a worst case situation where all your clients will be on at the same time and viewing different channels.

An alternative CS system is actually for all clients to also actually be servers. Each client purchases their own group agreed package so that the whole service is covered on a few cards. Load is now shared out amongst multiple cards/servers but everybody gets the whole package. This kind of network is also much more fault tolerant as nothing is controlled by just a single point of failure !

 

[rljutter]

As always 1 question leads to 10 more questions lol.

So if in a worse case any and all clients are watching different channels on sly and being served by a Dreambox 500s where would that limit be ........ A guestimate will do .............

Whatever that figure is, could it be increased by using a different server ?

 

[Fano]

So if in a worse case any and all clients are watching different channels on sly and being served by a Dreambox 500s where would that limit be ........ A guestimate will do .............

12-15 is the limit I have widely seen advised for Sly.

 

[gsmtech]

Depends how many cards you've got, I hear larger commercial CS servers have multiple cards and clients recieve cached keys from proxy servers, they never directly make requests to the cards.
So clients watching the same channels just used cached keys from the proxies, theres no additional load on cards..can even have clustered multiple proxies..

 

[Fano]

Depends how many cards you've got, I hear larger commercial CS servers have multiple cards and clients recieve cached keys from proxy servers, they never directly make requests to the cards.
So clients watching the same channels just used cached keys from the proxies, theres no additional load on cards..can even have clustered multiple proxies..

Yes M8,thats true but I was quoting for a stand alone card on a private server ,not a big commercial one .Thats a completely different kettle of fish.:Fish:

 

[Superflous]

So to answer the original question is the simplest terms, I reckon as do others that you could probably get away with about 15 fairly active peers on a DM500s as a server with a UK card.

 

[BIG-HOL]

i have 13 peers on my 500c server, 3 of them being my own boxes, and 10 peers of family and friends from all over the place, bare in mind there not all probably active at the same time, as most small servers, all peers will not be actively changing channels at the same time, and mine runs great, realistically i would say there capable of around 30 peers because like i say, realistically not everyone is going to be changing channels at the same time.

 

[nozzer]

i have 13 peers on my 500c server, 3 of them being my own boxes, and 10 peers of family and friends from all over the place, bare in mind there not all probably active at the same time, as most small servers, all peers will not be actively changing channels at the same time, and mine runs great, realistically i would say there capable of around 30 peers because like i say, realistically not everyone is going to be changing channels at the same time.

Probably as good an estimate as any bearing in mind that the majority of clients will probably cluster around a dozen or so channels.

Like I mentioned above, it really does depend on your clients as to what you can get away with. If you have a very diverse group (movie watchers, sports fanatics, bible bashers, porn lovers, asian etc) then you will be able to support a far smaller group than if they all have interest in only one topic, ie sports !

As a starting point I wouldn't to push a card above a dozen or so concurrent channels although you may find individual cards that can handle twice that many.

 

[Superflous]

To throw something else into the mix I share my card out to 6 people in Europe in exchange for their Euro cards, and the average amount of these guys who are actually active is < 1.

In saying that I probably use their cards about 10% of the time combined so it's a pretty harmonious relationship.