I am running several WMS layers from a GeoServer (2.2 RC3 at the moment of writing). All layers are ImagePyramids with sizes ranging from 100GB to 1TB in size.
I have read the GeoServer on Steroids several times and I'm probably missing half of it still. But there's a few things I'm wondering about.
My pyramids consists of 9-10 levels of GeoTIFF files, each level having 1/2 resolution of the previous. Each GeoTIFF has a file size with an average at around 8MB, a defined CRS and a size aspect ratio of 1:1.
- Is my TIFF file size inefficient?
- Will I get a performance boots by adding overview to my TIFF's?
- Will inner tiling increase performance?
- What could help me increase performance?
- What have you guys learned from your experiments with ImagePyramids in GeoServer?
1,3) In my view these two comes down to how a TIFF file is being handled in general and especially by GeoServer and I'm clueless here.
2) If I added overviews to my TIFF files my guess is that it corresponds to jump a level in the pyramid and thus I would only waste disk space?
Edit: Changed pyramid resolution from (the wrong) 1/4 to (the correct) 1/2. The pyramids are following the powers of 2 guidelines.
Best Answer
Your tiff file is definitely inefficient, files around 1-2GB are normally better since GeoServer won't have to open as many files to generate the output. Inner tiles help when you are zoomed in and need only to access a portion of the file. Having a 4 times jump between levels will improve disk occupation, but will also slow down image serving and also quality of the output.
The rest I already wrote in the presentation ;-)