Web Servers in Practice: Performance and Security
Web Servers in Practice: Performance and Security Web servers handle requests from users around the world. In practice, speed matters for user experience and search rankings, while security protects data and trust. Small sites and large apps share the same basics: fast content, clear errors, and strong protection against abuse. The goal is a reliable, simple stack you can maintain over time. Performance in practice starts with measurement. Track latency, error rate, and throughput, and watch how they change with traffic. Then tune the stack in layers. Caching at every level helps: the browser, a reverse proxy, and the application cache should all return content quickly. Enable compression—prefer Brotli or gzip for text assets—and avoid wasting CPU on images or already compressed data. ...