1000 requests per second?

[luben karavelov]

owkaye wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> Can nginx -- running on one server -- deliver 1000 requests 
> per second without "bogging down" and pushing more and more 
> requests into a queue?  
> 
> Here's my reason for asking:
> 
> I'm designing a live auction website that needs to respond 
> to 500-1000 requests per second for about an hour.  Each 
> request will post only 20 bytes of data so the volume being 
> posted is low.  Nevertheless the HTTP headers still need to 
> be parsed and they will have far more volume than the 
> actual post data -- so it seems I should do everything I 
> can to reduce the HTTP header overhead.  This will 
> substantially reduce the load and speed up nginx's response 
> times, correct?
> 
> I'm wondering if nginx has the ability to use "Web Sockets" 
> technology to eliminate all but the first HTTP header, and 
> maintain a connection with the browser so data can be 
> passed back and forth faster?
> 
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#network
> 
> If this is not possible, can you tell me the best way to 
> reduce the HTTP header overhead so I can make sure that 
> each of those 1000 requests per second are responded to as 
> fast as they come in?  Or am I concerned about something 
> that's a non-issue, perhaps because nginx is so blazing 
> fast that it can handle this kind of load without breaking 
> a sweat?
> 
> The worst problem I can imagine is that during one of these 
> live auctions the server will begin to respond slowly and 
> push requests into a queue.  If this happens, bidders will 
> not receive timely updates from the server and then the 
> whole service loses credibility.
> 
> If Web Sockets is not an option, perhaps using Javascript in 
> the visitor's browsers to send requests via XMLHttpRequest 
> is the next-best option for reducing overhead?
> 
> http://axod.blogspot.com/
> 
> Thanks for any insights you can provide to help me decide 
> whether or not nginx might be appropriate for my needs. 
> 
> Best,
> Owkaye
> 

My experience is that nginx will not pose limit in this case.
On my desktop (Pentium 4) nginx serves 3000-5000 req/s with static 
content (10K). What might pose limits is your application code and 
database utilization pattern.

luben