up vote 0 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I am developing a social networking website for my client which is expected to cater for 2000 users at a time.

I want to know what parameters to take consideration so that I can estimate what is the maximum users server can handle at a time.

These are the parameters I have collected.

Size of  page with maximum features:65KB (after gzip compression)
Ajax request                       :576 Bytes per 3 Sec

Server configuration 
---------------------
6GB RAM and 15 CPU (4 cores)
Intel Dual Nehalem (5520) 1U System

I want a rough estimate of how much users at a time server can handle.

link|improve this question
Most apache setups I have come across run out of RAM first, since Apache spawns a new thread for each request. If you estimate each thread at 30MB (can be higher or lower - test on your system), and keep some memory for everything else on the server, you can only run about 185 simultaneous connections - response size isn't as significant.. This is very dependent on your server setup (FastCGI vs. built in module, number of modules loaded, etc.). Test it yourself with ab, siege, jmeter, httperf, etc - watch your memory and CPU during the test. Consider a lightweight server (e.g. nginx). – cyberx86 Jan 29 at 19:50
It tends to be easier and give better info, if you devise and perform tests that reflect a real workload. – Zoredache Jan 29 at 20:47
feedback

Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.