Web Hosting Help - Technical Questions

I found there are several methods of managing traffic on servers or even a small network for the company that I work for. Firstly, you need to determine and evaluate how your network is setup and the general purpose of the server. If you are attempting to manage network traffic on one or two servers, then an application-level solution is the ideal way to go about it. For example, there is an available software module for Apache called mod_throttle intended to reduce the load on your server and bandwidth generated by virtual hosts, directories, locations, or users according to supported polices that decide when to delay or refuse requests. It can also can track and throttle incoming connections by IP address or by authenticated remote users.

There is also another module called mod_gzip that compresses a majority of your web site content before delivery to requested clients. If a majority of your online content is text based then this module will have a high impact on your web server since it can perform a higher compression ratio than say images (which is difficult to compress due to its structure makeup). However, the process of compression will add further pressure on your system resources and processing power.

If you have control or access to the network infrastructure, or require to load balance a high number of web servers, it might be worthwhile to invest in a hardware based solution. For example, a router or a Packeteer device can help you prioritize and manage network traffic with somewhat precision. If the load gets too high on the web server and upgrades are not worthwhile, it might be time to spread the work over multiple servers instead.