Max tcp/ip connections on Windows Server 2008

How many thousands of users?

I've run some TCP/IP client/server connection tests in the past on Windows 2003 Server and managed more than 70,000 connections on a reasonably low spec VM. (see here for details: http://www.lenholgate.com/blog/2005/10/the-64000-connection-question.html). I would be extremely surprised if Windows 2008 Server is limited to less than 2003 Server and, IMHO, the posting that Cloud links to is too vague to be much use. This kind of question comes up a lot, I blogged about why I don't really think that it's something that you should actually worry about here: http://www.serverframework.com/asynchronousevents/2010/12/one-million-tcp-connections.html.

Personally I'd test it and see. Even if there is no inherent limit in the Windows 2008 Server version that you intend to use there will still be practical limits based on memory, processor speed and server design.

If you want to run some 'generic' tests you can use my multi-client connection test and the associated echo server. Detailed here: http://www.lenholgate.com/blog/2005/11/windows-tcpip-server-performance.html and here: http://www.lenholgate.com/blog/2005/11/simple-echo-servers.html. These are what I used to run my own tests for my server framework and these are what allowed me to create 70,000 active connections on a Windows 2003 Server VM with 760MB of memory.

Edited to add details from the comment below...

If you're already thinking of multiple servers I'd take the following approach.

1. Use the free tools that I linkto and prove to yourself that youcan create a reasonable number ofconnections onto your target OS(beware of the Windows limits ondynamic ports which may cause yourclient connections to fail, searchfor MAX_USER_PORT).

2. during development regularly test your actual server with testclients that can create connectionsand actually 'do something' on theserver. This will help to preventyou building the server in ways thatrestrict its scalability. See here: http://www.serverframework.com/asynchronousevents/2010/10/how-to-support-10000-or-more-concurrent-tcp-connections-part-2-perf-tests-from-day-0.html

There is a limit on the number of half-open connections, but afaik not for active connections. Although it appears to depend on the type of Windows 2008 server, at least according to this MSFT employee:

It depends on the edition, Web and Foundation editions have connection limits while Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter do not.