How To Scale Spring Reactive Stack Using Netty

Question

I am starting a project using spring webflux reactive stack which by default uses Reactor Netty as the server. Pls correct me if i'm wrong, but i read that Netty can only have maximum number of event loops as the amount of processors on the instance. This means that if a request gets blocked for a second (which should not be the use case i know, just for example), we would only be able to get max 1 Transaction Per Second if there is only 1 processor on instance.

I am wondering how scalable Netty is compared to servlet container like Tomcat? What are the pros and cons of using Netty vs Tomcat?

I also want to know the ways to optimize Netty configurations to make sure it is production ready.

Answer 1

This means that if a request gets blocked for a second (which should not be the use case i know, just for example)

the whole purpose of this stack is to scale hugely on a limited amount of resources (here, threads). This is all built on the critical requirement that every step is asynchronous and non-blocking.

So your "just for example" doesn't make any sense. Yes, if you block for one second that CPU will only process that single request during that second. That is also completely wrong of you to do so, and everything in the stack is made to help you avoid blocking.