[development] Reducing file handles

[Sean Robertson]

Is there anything that can be done to reduce the number of file handles 
produced by Drupal databases?  We run numerous Drupal sites (currently 
~50, will likely end up closer to 200) on a two files servers with a 
load balancer and a separate MySQL database server.

Usually, the bottleneck in MySQL is in connections, but we found that as 
we started moving sites over to the new setup, we very quickly ran into 
the default file handle limit.  We've increased that limit and seen no 
adverse effects yet, but I expect we will as we continue setting up new 
sites (with each site adding a new database and ~100 tables to the db 
server).

What is the best way to deal with that issue?  Is there any way to 
reduce file handles in Drupal?  Would innoDB help us any more than 
MyISAM or would that only help us with speeding up our busiest 
individual sites?

I am getting increasingly concerned about scalability as we approach the 
next campaign cycle and I expect we will have at least a few sites that 
draw a LOT of traffic (we had carterfornevada.com last year which 
regularly drew 5k+ unique visits per day, often in sudden surges thanks 
to the wonderful blogging efforts of Sarah Carter).



-- 
Sean Robertson
Web Developer
NGP Software, Inc.
seanr at ngpsoftware.com
(202) 686-9330
http://www.ngpsoftware.com