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How does having multiple lemmy servers spread the load? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago by aztlantic@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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!

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years 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.