You are here: Configuring Server Connections > HTTP Multiplexing

HTTP Multiplexing

HTTP multiplexing is the re-use of established server connections for multiple clients connections. The best way to understand this feature is to compare non-multiplexing behavior to multiplexing behavior. When HTTP multiplexing is disabled (the default on FortiADC), each client connection requires a new connection between FortiADC and a server.

What this means is that the servers behind FortiADC have to allocate a significant amount of resources to establishing and tearing down TCP connections -- resources that could otherwise be used by the applications running on the servers.

When HTTP multiplexing is enabled, an established server connection is left open for a period of time to see if any new client connections are load balanced to the same server. If so, this connection is used to forward the new client request to the server.

This allows FortiADC to service multiple client requests without all the overhead associated with establishing a new server connection for every request - and results in better performance on the client and server as well:

the client does not have to wait for FortiADC to establish a server connection before sending the request to a server
the server does not have to incur the overhead of establishing a new connection with FortiADC