[rules-users] Server Sizing for Flow and Expert

[Bruce Campbell]

I will be starting a new project soon and my middleware folks need to size a server for it.  Does anyone have any input as to how they (middleware) can adjust their usual sizing exercise to account for the use of Flow and Expert?  Here are some "facts" that may or may not be relevant...
We do not have any significant experience with Flow nor Expert
We will be using the "current" release of Drools as of January 4th 2010
Websphere in the middle, Oracle in the back
Our main Expert routine will run every 10 minutes and
  will determine which of our 10-ish "flows" the work items will travel
  may contain 500 - 1000 rules (guestimated by a noob)...
  will process the rules once-through for each item in the batch (little or no rule interactions)
  a batch would typically contain 10- 100 items to process..
  but could contain up to 300 after a severe outage.
  batch size could be controlled if necessary.
  and will likely run on the same server as the "Flow" application...
Our internal web application will be primarily Flow driven with...
    50-ish user, 35 concurrent
    10 "flows" with simple to moderate complexity from a processing perspective, mainly human tasks. (much of the time someone will check a few boxes, add some comments, and the work item will flow to the next step/person.)
I'm hopeful someone can pipe in with how Flow and Expert change the typical sizing exercise, however, I appreciate any input you may have whether related to sizing or not..
thanks in advance
Bruce


 NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.