More explanations for slow Web access:
As David pointed out, there are several possible causes.
(1) Web server software sick (needs restart). Web Server products, database products and Microsoft operating systems tend to lose memory over time. When memory becomes scarce, things slow way down... until the software is restarted or the server gets rebooted.
(2) Web server too busy. The 80,000 user figure seems way too high to me. Stock talk is running some sort of database. One limiting factor is how many simultaneous requests can be made. A user might make a request, on average, every 30 seconds. 1,000 (simultaneous) such users will generate 120,000 hits/hour. 33 database lookups/second could swamp a server. Might need a disk array shared between several replicated Web/Database servers top pull this off... Depends upon how heavy duty the hardware is and how efficient the database is (especially the Webserver-to-database link).
(3) Congested link in the network chain throttles your bandwidth. The Internet is a bunch of networks concatenated together. It could be a back-bone, or one of the regional networks connected at the end of a backbone, or a congested router between two backbones... or something else :-)
(4) Your ISP could be overloaded. If your ISP does not have enough bandwith to support all its simultaneous users, the bottle neck will be at your end.
(5) Telephone line noise. This can really drop the effective bandwith of a 28800/14400 modem.
There is alot more than this. Basicly your bandwidth is limited by the slowest link on the chain, which could be severely limited by any of the above... |
