51

Basically, I have read several statements addressing this topic. For example:

"If my server gets too big I will just close registrations"

"Server X got too big, so they closed registrations to manage the load"

While I do understand that this can help for small servers which don't have a big number of external users. How does this help with big and popular servers? Don't they have to serve requests from external users using their resources? For example, I might self host a server just for my account but I read all my content from lemmy.world. Am I not using their bandwidth and their resources anyway?

Bonus question: Does federating with other servers increase the resource usage of my server? What kind of metadata/data do I have to store from each server I federate with?

Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Probably the same way a hybrid gas-electric car is more fuel efficient. In a hybrid, the battery revs up and down with need while the engine just powers the battery at a steady clip. Since the engine can run constantly at a fix optimum speed, it is more fuel efficient.

Likewise, I figure, each server has a certain amount of bandwidth. If everyone is on one server, all the posts and comments come at random intervals with spikes and troughs. Either the bandwidth gets throttled, which causes lag, or all the comments go through at the same time, which uses a lot of bandwidth. With multiple servers, those posts get federated and (probably, I'm guessing at this point) wait for the federated server to signal that they are no longer busy, which flattens the bandwidth demand.

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
51 points (96.4% liked)

Selfhosted

39683 readers
540 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS