max simultaneous connection for cable

[prelude4]

Hi, I'm a newbie in the web server area. Recently, I've been thinking about getting a web server. I'm hoping to use my current cable connection( 3.5 Mbit/ sec) and host a database intensive web site on a web server from home. I'm wondering what would the max simultaneous connection be if i have the following configuration:
Dell small business server with celeron CPU 2.53Ghz,
512 mb ram
Linux and apache,
cable internet connection.

I just need a ball park number. Thanks and Happy new year.

[jdMorgan]

You could probably support several hundred connections with that server. The problem is that most cable companies will cancel your service if you run a server, or they will block incoming port 80 so you'll have to use some other port (and specify it in your URLs).

This is common with many ISPs, and the reason is that their networks are engineered to support high throughput *to* client connections (like when you download a file with your browser), rather than high throughput *from* a client connection, like when someone loads a page or file from your home server.

These systems are usually engineered to support ten times as much traffic to clients as from them. For example ADSL, means "Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line." The "Asymmetric" term refers to the fact that ADSL supports much more traffic to the client than from it. Cable systems are similar -- before their use for internet connections, they had *no* capability to carry incoming data *from* their clients, they were designed exclusively to deliver data (cable television channels) to their clients.

Running a Web server on such systems can throw the balance of incoming and outgoing traffic seriously off-balance. So, they don't like it at all.

Before embarking on this project, read your ISP's customer agreement very carefully. Otherwise, you'll end up with no connections --incoming or outgoing-- whatsoever.

Jim

[prelude4]

i see. Thanks for reminding me this fact.
As an experiment I try to host my web site from home and see how many connections my pc can handle simultaneously. Turns out the server start having problem when there are more than around 30 or so visitors to my site. My apache server sometimes fail to responding to client requests. My question is, is this limitation caused by my connection bandwidth, or my CPU? or memory or some other factors that i'm unaware of?
The configuration that I used to host the experiemental site is
AMD 750mhz
384 RAM
40G IDE HDD
3.5Mbit cable connection(.35Mbit upload?)
Apache2
MySQL4
WinXP