Barry, do you mean using CFCONTENT from within CFML? If so, then besides what the others have said, I'll clarify that you need to be concerned not only with "a limited number of http connections that can be made to a server", if by that you meant the web server, but also tying up CF threads (the "simultaneous request threads" setting in the CF Admin). Each request that starts a CFCONTENT will tie up one of these threads while the request is serving content.
Given that the default number of threads (which varies in Multiserver deployments and Server/Standard deployments) or whatever you may have changed them to be, it may or may not be an issue tying up threads this way. The best way to tell is to use a tool like FusionReactor or SeeFusion, which can show what requests are running at any time (and for how long) on CF 6, 7, 8, or 9. You can also see it with the CF Server Monitor, if you have CF 8 or 9 Enterprise, and as long as you use its "start monitoring" button. Tying up one or a few threads this way for even minutes may not be the end of the world, but if something happens where you get a bump in activity (or some other cause of slowdowns), then every request thread can become precious. Note as well that the speed with which these downloads will finish is dependent on your clients doing the downloading, which adds more challenge to how best to accommodate this situation. /charlie arehart char...@carehart.org Providing CF and CFBuilder troubleshooting services at http://www.carehart.org/consulting > -----Original Message----- > From: cfaussie@googlegroups.com [mailto:cfaus...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf > Of > BarryC > Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2010 5:49 PM > To: cfaussie > Subject: [cfaussie] Serving of large files over the web - performance impact, > issues? > > Hi all, > > This isn't really a coldfusion specific question, but I thought some > people here might have dealt with this sort of thing. > > We are looking at serving of large files (e.g. 4GB) from our web > servers. We run Apache web servers, but I haven't been able to find > any useful general information about the impact of serving out large > files and what performance problems there might be when serving out > large files in terms of server performance, does one need to be > running a separate service all together to be dishing out large files > from a web server? I know there are a limited number of http > connections that can be made to a server, and these can be tied up if > someone is spending several hours downloading one file. Obviously > bandwidth of the server and client is a factor, but I'm not so worried > about that at the moment. > > If anyone has experience serving large files any info would be very > handy :) > > Thanks > Barry Chesterman -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "cfaussie" group. To post to this group, send email to cfaus...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cfaussie+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en.