What’s the link between Apple, gdgt and Rackspace? Apple releases new innovative products; gdgt shares the latest news with millions of visitors; Rackspace Cloud Sites ensures that gdgt’s site stays up and running so that Apple fans can get the latest info.

1. Rackspace Powers gdgt, Handles 55 Million Page
Requests for iPhone 5 Event
Filed in Partner & Customer Updates by Tarun Bhatti | September 12, 2012 5:13 pm
What’s the link between Apple, gdgt and Rackspace? Apple releases new innovative products; gdgt shares the latest
news with millions of visitors; Rackspace Cloud Sites ensures that gdgt’s site stays up and running so that Apple
fans can get the latest info.
Today, the world was watching when Apple announced the new iPhone 5. Millions of fans wanted to get a sneak
preview of this cool new gadget. However, since Apple doesn’t broadcast this event live, fans turn to gdgt’s live
blog for photos and updates from the announcement. gdgt handled over 55 Million page requests in a matter of three
hours. Here are more details and numbers on the traffic that flowed through their site today:
Total Traffic Served – Approximately 55 Million page hits
Peak Traffic – Approximately 90K concurrent visitors
Traffic Time frame – Approximately 3 hours
[1]
Traffic on gdgt in Hits per Minute During iPhone 5 Event
If you have ever managed a server during a traffic spike, you know that along with the excitement of traffic comes
the pain of having to handle it on your own. To get help with the traffic onslaught, gdgt depends on Rackspace
Cloud Sites to keep their site up and running. In fact, this is not the first time Rackspace handled such huge amount
of traffic for gdgt. During a previous iPhone 4S and new iPad launch, gdgt handled 55 Million page requests in
matter of few hours.

2. [2]
TCP Connections on gdgt Site During iPhone 5 Event
Before the event, the people from gdgt and Rackspace worked together to prepare for this kind of traffic. While gdgt
ensures that their code is highly optimized, Rackspace ensures that we have all the infrastructure resources that they
will need. We also follow our best practices for high traffic events – including hosting images on Cloud Files. Here
are some of the stats on infrastructure that was used:
# of web servers – 59
# of load balancers – 5
The event ran so smoothly that Ryan Block of gdgt gave Rackspace a shoutout on the gdgt Live Blog at the end of
the event:
[3]
It takes a lot of hard work from both the customer and Rackspace to make these high traffic events a success. At
Rackspace, we make sure that gdgt doesn’t have to worry about their server performance or downtime so that they
can do what they do best: bring you the latest information on all the coolest technology!
Be sure to find out more information about gdgt along with a video featuring Co-founder Ryan Block. Looking for
best practices for optimizing your site on Rackspace Cloud Sites for a high traffic event? Check out this knowledge
center article for more info!
Endnotes:
1. [Image]: http://ddf912383141a8d7bbe4-
e053e711fc85de3290f121ef0f0e3a1f.r87.cf1.rackcdn.com/gdgt%20iphone%205%20traffic%20hits.png
2. [Image]: http://ddf912383141a8d7bbe4-

3. e053e711fc85de3290f121ef0f0e3a1f.r87.cf1.rackcdn.com/gdgt%20iphone%205%20traffic%20connections.png
3. [Image]: http://live.gdgt.com/live-iphone-5-launch-coverage/
Source URL: http://www.rackspace.com/blog/rackspace-powers-gdgt-handles-55-million-page-requests-for-iphone-
5-event/
Copyright ©2012 The Official Rackspace Blog unless otherwise noted.