DocAndersen
I answered a comment made on yesterday’s technology post with an analogy about computer’s and Bee’s. I wanted to expand that answer a little to potentially help people as they consider troubleshooting, but also as they consider connecting to and using remote applications. The analogy is quite simple, but it is also very complex, so I decided to put it out, as a post to give you a better and broader view.
First, think of the processor (s) in your computer as a flower. Your computer, depending on age and nature may have one (core) or two (core+ graphics) processors. The metaphor/analogy is that it is a single flower. Now, if your computer is running a 32-bit operating system, you have limits as to what the flower can do to improve its root structure and visibility for bees. If your e is running a 64-bit operating system, you have twice as many ways for bees to see the flowers. The problem of course then is the capacity of the flower to interact with bees and the type of interaction the bees require.
- Payment systems (Paypal, your bank, etc.) require more direct processor attention than do things like news sites (CNN or mSNBC). Unless you are watching breaking news via your browser (say Hurricane Florence live coverage) in which case the news station sucks up a whole lot of the flowers attention.
- The flower only has a limited amount of attention it can give.
- There are also a limited number of bee’s that can directly connect to the flower.
- The more bees you have, the more the bees have to wait.
- Some bees don’t like waiting.
As I said, it is a very simple analogy. Think of the bee’s you have on your computer right now (every open browser window and every other application you have in your system tray is a bee). The picture I’ve shared with this post is from my computer this morning. It shows everything that is currently a Bee. Add to that a couple of other factors, and you see why your flower sometimes wilts!
- Pending or required restarts that you postpone can cause your computer to deteriorate.
- Old or non-updated software performs differently depending on, of course, the status of the overall system.
- The what of all those Bee’s becomes critical quickly.
I have 5 Google Chrome windows open. That produces a level of strain on the CPU or flower that the bee’s talk to. It is a pretty big strain.
I also run outlook, that also adds additional impact on that flower.
Let’s talk about the bee to flower ratio to end today.
- 100 bees isn’t a bad thing. For windows, computers hit ctrl, alt and delete and bring up task manager. How many running processes do you have?
- If you have eight gigs or less of memory on your computer your bee to flower ratio (running processes) should be less than 50 to 1.
- The more memory you have and the faster processor you have, the more open things you can have.
- (32 bit OS) vs. (64 bit OS) means you need to cut in half the number of bees with a 32-bit flower.
- It isn’t that hard.
The quickest way to overwhelm your flower is to have a long line of demanding bees,
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Question of
Are you aware of how many bees you are connecting to Virily?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
When your computer is having issues do you check what you are running first?
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Yes
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No
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I actually clean my browser when my computer slows down and that usually works. I never thought to see what was running. I am sure there is stuff that does not need to be.
It really makes a HUGE difference when you know what is running, what should be running and what your computer is doing. Scary sometimes how little we really know about what we are currently running.
I find myself deleting applications more and more often over time.
I clicked No on both questions, so it shows I need to be more aware. Thank you!
That is the hardest thing people have to do. I know that I find myself frustrated, step back and realize oops it was my fault. I hate that!
I actually drill down to the services layer and turn things off for performance gains…
I do the same thing, the system tray items are the ones that chew the most processor and memory!
Yup, and they also are most likely to introduce race conditions or other bugs. A clean system is its own reward
That is the trade-off we have to consider. I have a computer that only does VR and one that only does VMWare because of the variables.
there is a version of VMware that doesn’t need an OS, it runs right on the metal…
well it needs an OS (you are talking about ESX I assume) but the OS is integrated with the overall “VM management layer”.
Yar, ye be a right salty dog Cap’n Anderson!
Yay me hearty, salty be my expression and the way I be conversing.
May ye ne’er loose yer sea legs, me heartie
Argh as salty as one of her majesty’s seadogs ye be.
I be the queen’s privateer and I’ll sink any Spaniard where I find them, yar!
This answer is very complete and adequate! This will make me more careful to bring many bees and limit them more.
Thanks, Albert, it was your question on my other post that inspired the expansion of bees!
So happy to get important and useful input
THank you for the gentle guidance. Truly you inspired me my friend!
More important technology shared for all Doc. Thanks for explaining.
Thanks, Carol! Sometimes I worry that our struggles aren’t noticed, sometimes I worry that they are 🙂