[OSM-dev] WMSC - bachelor thesis

[BG]

Hej there,

At the moment I am working on my bachelor thesis using osm data to 
create cached-wms (wmsc).

I now have a running mapnik based tirex tile-server combined with a wms 
via mod_mapnik_wms. Next, I want to use the tilecache.org wmsc.

I have some questions and hope to find help along my path.

1. Are there any possibilties to check the performance of a wms/wmsc? I 
want to compare the server performance. I just need to see, if wmsc is 
faster than wms.

2. I thought wmsc has to be faster than wms - but nobody is using it, is 
there a reason?

3. I know the mod_mapnik_wms and the wmsc from tilecache.org - do u know 
more or better software, which does or doesn't work mapnik based? Is 
there an alternative to mapnik?

4. Is there a possibility to synchronize the database automatically, 
which i need to import from osm?

5. While importing via osm2pgsql the system used 4gb ram - how much 
would i need for the planet file?

I would appreciate any help.

Best regards,
Bernd