Reverse Proxy for db.mensa.de

Overview

I placed a reverse proxy in front of the member database at db.mensa.de. It permanently handles the optimisation and protection of all incoming requests, with a noticeable effect on availability and load times for users as well as on the load of the backend system.

Responsibilities

Proof of concept

Standing up a demo system to validate the approach before the production rollout.

Operations and migration

Hosting and configuring the production system and steering a controlled migration to the target solution, in close coordination with stakeholders and backend developers.

Request optimisation

The average response time for users dropped from around 2 s to 0.2 s. Eleven of every twelve incoming requests are rejected at the proxy, such as bot requests and flooding attempts, so only legitimate requests reach the backend. The lighter backend load speeds those up further.

Stack

Nginx, Linux server on Hetzner.