# Scalability issue **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [March 24, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/scalability-issue/163764 "2009-03-24T18:20:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/bbce88/32.png) [@howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/howard_chen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/scalability-issue/163764/1 "2009-03-24T18:20:23Z")
Hey I am new to nginx. According to the web: [Welcome to NGINX Wiki! | NGINX](http://wiki.nginx.org/Main) It said… Nginx is one of a handful of servers written to address the C10K problem. Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn’t rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but most importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load… But my questions are… 1. No matter how fast you are delivering the data, it is bounded by only one thread, so it is not scalable as nowsaday if you have 8 core - server? 1. Even you are using event-driven, remote clients must also need to establish a remote port to your web server, so you can’t save much resources in fact? Thank you . ---
**Author:** ![howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/bbce88/32.png) [@howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/howard_chen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/scalability-issue/163764/2 "2009-03-24T19:04:53Z")
Hello! On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 01:12:29AM +0800, howard chen wrote: > handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven > (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but most > importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load… > > But my questions are… > > 1. No matter how fast you are delivering the data, it is bounded by > only one thread, so it is not scalable as nowsaday if you have 8 core > > - server? No. You just configure nginx to run 8 worker processes - and this effectively uses all available CPU resources with minimal overhead. > 1. Even you are using event-driven, remote clients must also need to > establish a remote port to your web server, so you can’t save much > resources in fact? Yes, you can’t save sockets. No, there is a lot of resources that saved in fact compared to thread-per-connection or process-per-connection models, since thread is much more than socket. Maxim D. ---
**Author:** ![howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/bbce88/32.png) [@howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/howard_chen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/scalability-issue/163764/3 "2009-03-24T18:58:22Z")
1. You can configure nginx to use as many instances as you want. If your server is 8 core, you can set nginx to use 8 instances. So this is not an issue. 2. I don’t really understand what you mean. Sergej ---
**Author:** ![howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/bbce88/32.png) [@howard\_chen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/howard_chen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/scalability-issue/163764/4 "2009-03-24T19:05:28Z")
On Wed, 2009-03-25 at 01:12 +0800, howard chen wrote: > 1. No matter how fast you are delivering the data, it is bounded by > only one thread, so it is not scalable as nowsaday if you have 8 core > > - server? Nginx can use as many cores as you have available (via worker processes). But this question is overly simplistic anyway. There’s more to a server than CPU utilization. > 1. Even you are using event-driven, remote clients must also need to > establish a remote port to your web server, so you can’t save much > resources in fact? A thread uses quite a lot of RAM (the exact amount is system-dependent), so by not using them you do, in fact, save a lot of resources. There’s also things like kernel context-switches, CPU cache invalidation and other things that make threads less efficient than event-driven architectures. There’s quite a lot of information on the pros-and-cons of event-driven vs threaded servers available on the internet. Google is your friend. Regards, Cliff