While scaling web sites is fascinating, for most people it is also unnecessary. The vast majority of web sites runs just fine on 1 computer. For example, hacker

While scaling web sites is fascinating, for most people it is also unnecessary. The vast majority of web sites runs just fine on 1 computer. For example, hacker news runs not just on one computer, but actually on 1 core. So with a single 8 core box with ~100GB ram you can get quite far and save yourself a big hassle.