3.4. Examples and Reality

Will your web servers, databases, storage, and caches exhibit the same behavior as these? It's almost guaranteed they won't because each application and type of data affects system resources differently. The examples in this chapter simply illustrate the methods and thought processes by which you can investigate and form a better understanding of how increased load can affect each part of your infrastructure.

The important lesson to retain is each segment of your architecture will spend system resources to serve your website, and you should make sure you're measuring those resources appropriately. However, recording the right measurements isn't enough. You need to have some idea of when those resources will run out, and that's why you periodically need to probe to establish those ceilings.