Node.js scalability in typical web applications

Question

As Node.js beginner coming from Enterprise IT, I am unable to comprehend one aspect of node.js usage. I am framing my question in two parts.

Question-1) Strictly from scalability standpoint, how can an I/O heavy web application scale using node.js unless we scale back-end I/O resources that it is consuming?

A database server can serve only "X" number of concurrent users. Even if node based HTTP server is able to handle more incoming requests, overall throughput is going to be dictated by number of concurrent connections DB can handle.

Same applies for other enterprise resources like content retrieval from file servers or invocation of legacy APIs etc. I understand that we would be less worried about cloud resources which can elastically scale and are not in our direct purview.

Question-2) If answer to above question is "Node is not one-size-fit-all solution", how are companies like PayPal, Walmart, LinkedIn et al able to gain scale using node? They too would integrate within their existing system landscape, and are not totally network based applications (or are they?).

shrinath · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-01 15:22:10Z

1

Node.js is typically used as an orchestration layer in SOA.It is mainly used as front-end for the backend services.It is true that the throughput is going to be dictated by number of concurrent connections DB can handle but there is also the time involved for the presentation layer to present the content.
Web technologies like JSP,Ruby on rails are designed to get the content on the server and serve as a single page to the client and are not suited for orchestration layer.Today we need services that handle mobile clients(where there are lot of API calls to retrieve small amount of data)Thus node.js reduces the response time and increases the user expierence.
Look at http://nodejs.org/video/ video by Eric Hammer to understand how Node.js is being used in Walmart.

answered Sep 1, 2014 at 15:22

shrinath

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