C H A P T E R  8

Load Balancing Your Web Site

When hearing the word “Apache,” most people will think of three things: a group of Native American tribes, a US military battle helicopter, or the open-source HTTP web server project. Now, assuming you didn't pick up this book to learn about American battle helicopters or the Apachean people, you are probably thinking of the web server.

While it's certainly true that the brand name Apache is mostly known for the web server project, the name Apache on its own has little meaning. Rather, it is the Apache Software Foundation that has developed and released the Apache HTTP Server as one of their projects, among many others. It is this Apache HTTP Server software we'll be discussing in this chapter. You'll learn how to fine-tune it for better performance and how to apply load balancing to it.