A similar question turned into opinion soup over here: So maybe there's no 'right' answer to this, but I want to check with the community.
My client is about to launch a TV advert. They are expecting traffic in the 7-digit department over the coming month. My job is to ensure the server does not fall over.
My question: is it worthwhile to split the MySQL database onto a separate server, which only serves the database. I then want to have multiple servers which contain the codebase and serve apache, interfacing with the database box. All will be virtual containers.
I do NOT (think) I want to use multiple DB servers – seems it will introduce unnecessary complexity and potential errors/bottlenecks.
Am I wrong? Would welcome some experience opinions on this. Thanks.
Best Answer
We've used a separate MySQL server in several instances where the shops were facing high traffic. There are a couple of advantages to it
When Magento is properly cached with Varnish or any other FPC extension the main bottleneck will be the database from what I have experienced. The real power will be required for your database. In this way you can start out with a relatively small web server and invest more in the database server.