How many Connections can server handle?

[lppenguin]

Hi, I host my own small (very small) business server. My wife is planning a promotion set to start at a specific time and expects 1,000 to 4,000 people attempting to log in at the same time. We have never got close to that volume of traffic. We have been told our database will not have any problem.

I am concerned about our hardware that could be overload/crash the server which would be a disaster for her promotion. I have tried to research this question and have not found much info, hoping someone here can help out.

The system is pretty basic, I7-920 using Asus on board gig NIC, six gig ddr3. The router is a Syswan SW24 and Charter business cable 20MB. This has worked well for several years but always low volume.

If this system is not sufficient what are the weak points that I must address?

Thanks

 

[DeathRayLoveMachine]

Is that 20 megabits down or up? You specificed Charter business cable so I assume that's the download speed, which means your upload speed is more like 2-5 megabits per second.

You're expecting 1000-4000 people. I don't know anything about your website or how much content is on there, but if an average person downloads 500KB of data from your server, you'll need to transmit 500-2000 MB of data, which will take a minimum of 800-8000 seconds on your connection.

Realistically, that's not going to work.

Your CPU should be fine though, assuming by "i7 920" you actually mean "what the fuck this guy is running a tiny webserver on a fucking core i7 for some reason." As long as your webserver is set up to handle pages efficiently, it should process 4000 transactions in a couple seconds maximum.

Are you competent to set up a temporary server with a cloud service? That could handle 4000 simultaneous users no problem.

 

[Gryz]

Not enough info.

What kinda server are we talking about ? A webserver ? (That's what it sound like). Something more ?

What are these 4000 people gonna do ? View a page, fill a form, and click submit ? Or are they going to download a file, a program, something bigger than a few KiloBytes ? How big ?

What do you mean by "at the same time" ? Is a promotion like "first customer after 16:00 gets a free something ?" Or "first 1000 customers after 16:00 all get a free something ?" Do you expect 4000 connects in one minute ? Or 1 hour ? Because that makes a huge difference.

 

[lppenguin]

Thanks for the responses guys.

The server hosts our website and database.

It's a promo where better deals go to the earlier customers that will start at a specific time, so possibly many logins at that time. It has already been promoted and there seems to be lots of interest.

They will be logging into their account on our database and selecting the promo option. They will make payment which will be conducted off site. System will be updated. A receipt will be created for their account and an email will be sent.

The promo is already configured and that is what it is, no choices or web pages to see. There will probably be very little website browsing.

It is hard to say exactly how many people will be logging on at zero hour, My wife is hoping for 4,000 but I do not know. But I am sure of a much larger volume that anything we have had before.

I am not sure what Charter has available to increase upload speed, I will contact them and ask.

Googled "set up a temporary server with a cloud service", that is way beyond my ability.

As for the I7 I was just trying to future proof the server, obviously we have not got there yet. So is the weakest point the upload speed? And any chance of the system crashing?

 

[paperwastage]

The weak points/bottleneck:

Internet connection and router handling so many connections

Database locking/concurrency issues: When you log in or do an action on the website, it may query the database(eg verify the password hash, check for product quantity...) more people using the website = more people querying the database, maybe cause timeout issues

 

[JackMDS]

3rd party Hosting is so inexpensive that it is rather "Silly" to risk a Business in order to save $10-$20 a month.

 

[lppenguin]

Shouldn't make assumptions about my reasons. Cost is far down my list of priorities. I did pay for hosting awhile back, what a disaster. They screwed up the database, cost me over $1,000 to get it fixed.

No one I have seen host a real SQL DB for 10-20 a month.

 

[DeathRayLoveMachine]

No one I have seen host a real SQL DB for 10-20 a month.

If you don't need HTTPS, NearlyFreeSpeech will rent you an SQL process for $0.02/day.

 

[DeathRayLoveMachine]

I am not sure what Charter has available to increase upload speed, I will contact them and ask.

Business-class cable Internet isn't going to cut it for this. Just run the numbers:

4000 simultaneous users
all visiting within (say) ten minutes
each trying to download at least 500KB of data off your server

4000 users * 500 KB/user / 10 minutes = ~30 megabits per second of upload

And that's for a pretty favorable case.

Realistically, you want at least 100mbps, and the easiest way to get that is with shared or cloud hosting.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The issue with cable is the upload usually sucks.

Though, what OS is it running? If it's windows I'd be more worried about the artificial limitations they put in there. One of which is the amount of concurrent connections. I think there are ways to tweak that in the registry though.

If this is a one time thing see if someone you know has fibre to the home and you can temporary host the server there, or get a web hosting account somewhere if your needs are not advanced. The advantage of hosting at home though is you can configure stuff to your heart's desire without paying extra per month. Ex: disk space, ram, multiple failover servers, firewalls etc...

 

[lppenguin]

Thanks for the info everyone. I will be contacting a hosting company tomorrow morning, give it another chance. Sounds like maybe we have outgrown our home system.:thumbsup:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Get FIOS.