24 Nov 2007
I have started a conversation at the facebook developers forum on the minimum server specs that are needed for a Facebook app. This is like asking “What food would everyone on earth like to eat?” it is a very vague question with lots of possible variables to affect the answer to the question.
Let me start from the beginning. In our talks to one of the major advertising companies, their CTO requested that we send over the minimum server specs that would be needed to run a facebook app. I explained to him that we were currently using the Amazon Web Services EC2 instances, but of course he wanted specific details. So where do you find this information, when there is not a good answer? Where do you go for information that is not widely available yet because of the infancy of facebook app development?
I searched through the forums before I posted my question and I didn’t find much out there for minimum specs. This has mostly to do with the fact that it is such a vague question. Some of the variables that will come into play in regards to server specs for a facebook app are Daily Users, Pageviews, Database Usage, and bandwidth. So, I figured I would give a basic scenario of an app to see what we could come up with for the minimum specs.
1000 installs, 10% daily activity (100 User) - this is the minimum users needed for an app to consider it viral. Anything less then this and the app will most likely not continue to add users and then die.
We will see if people agree on a minimum standard that is needed for a Facebook app. My initial thought is that people will be able to give the specs that they are currently using and others will be able to give their failure scenarios. If this is what comes out of the forum then I would be happy, because at least I would have a starting point to give to potential customers who think that their $5/month shared hosting plan will be scalable enough to handle a Facebook app because “I run tons of site off of this provider, I love them”. This is a current issue and I am sure will continue to be an issue because of the basic misunderstandings of the Facebook environment compared to the normal internet environment.Troy
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