[imported_silkroad]

Originally Posted by kmike

Not trying to downplay your accomplishment, just pointing out there is another way to reduce server load - by switching to the more modern web server software.

No offense taken, don't worry. So please do not take offense to my direct reply.

First of all, you are replying, making numerous assumptions that might be relevant to your site, but not relevant to another site. So please don't be offended, but when I read your reply it seems you are not talking at all to me and our configuration requirements, but are just talking, to make a statement about web server optimization. Why?

Because you are simply promoting a few high performance web servers without considering the bigger picture. For example, did you consider that we may have solid reasons running Apache2 and that make extensive use of mod_rewrite and mod_geoip and other Apache mods?

Did you consider there are real costs of porting an entire site over to another web server that may or may not have the feature we need versus a few dollars a month for CDN services? A discussion about performance trade-offs without considering costs and other trade-offs is simply academic and generally meaningless.

Furthermore, off-loading static content to a CDN reduces the load on any web server. Even if you run nginx or lighttpd (which have have looked at and frankly do not like them) or Apache or anything under the sun, you will gain performance. Less hits means less load on any web server, independent and orthogonal to other server optimizations.

So, my impression to your post, nothing personal, is that you want to talk past me and make technical statements about web server software without considering the bigger picture (O&M, cost-benefit, features, etc.) of our requirements. The bottom line is that if we wanted to run nginx or lighttpd we would be running them. They are not "state secrets" ROTFL. We prefer Apache server for many reasons and yes, we have looked at both nginx and lighttpd. We prefer Apache2.

And.... as I said earlier, it is pointless (and also technically incorrect) for anyone to argue that moving static content off a server to a CDN is good for Apache but not for nginx or lighttpd. It is good for any configuration. The discussion gets muddled when we are discussing apples and someone wants to talk pasta and wheat bread.

So, if you intend to reply to me about CDN benefits and tradeoffs, then please do so. However, if you just want to talk and advocate your favorite web server technology or optimization strategy, that is a difference story. Go ahead, advocate nginx or lighttpd, but that has little or nothing do to with the discussion of the benefits of a CDN. They are orthogonal discussions.

CDNs benefit all configurations and software, modern or antique from the days of iron Gone-Daddy-Gone. Discussions about web server performance optimization, while interesting, are orthogonal to a discussion on the various benefits of moving static content off the server, any server, to a CDN.

Cheers.