Anatomy of a request: beyond backend processing

When we send a request to a backend, we focus on the processing aspect, which is really just the last step. There is so much more happening before a request is ready to be processed. In this talk, I go into the anatomy of the request and break it into six different steps: Accept, Read, Decrypt, Parse, Decode, and Process.

What you'll learn:

• Kernel vs userspace roles in request anatomy
• The different steps involved in building the request and the CPU cost for each
• How different backends, web servers, proxies, frameworks, and databases handle these steps
• Why HAProxy is built with efficiency in mind for processing requests
• How HAProxy can process and forward over 2 Million HTTP requests

HAProxy maintainers understand what goes on in a request, and the product is built with efficiency in mind, enabling its exceptional performance in high-volume environments.