From what I understand after the number of max connections is exhausted the server will stop responding which is likely to happen on a live server with long-polling requests on index, will this also happen in a Litespeed server? From what I understand it is superior to vanilla apache and it will not spawn a thread per request.
Sadly node.js isn't really an option, I am trying to pull the newest results for users realtime once per 1-2 minutes.
it will happen on every server when You implement strict long-pooling
please look on websockets as it's the best way of handling thousands of users simultaneously (from performance side of view)
if You cannot use websockets try to implement reconnect as simple interval on which you abort current connection and establishing new one
You should look for a realtime web server, in your technology of choice, which support WebSockets as best-of-breed connectivity and falls back to HTTP-based solutions for older browsers and when there are tricky networks interfering with connections.
I'd recommend taking a look at the realtime web tech guide (which I maintain - and accept contributions to).
