Simple SQL with MySQL - performance

Amoung other things, we are developing a session management/access system which will store the session information in a MySQL db table. The speed of this process is important. below is the rough idea of what we are doing. 1) the user goes to the site, and logs in. They are issued a random ticket (a cookie). The ticket, and their user information is stored in a MySQL table, along with the timestamp of when they logged in (used later for expiring their session later). 1 db hit. 2) The user cruises around the site, and have access to everything (we are intergrating various backend systems, some of which use Basic Auth to authenticate people, some of which use web forms, so the proxy script passes the user information off to the various things that need it) At some point their session expires (just because they love the site and stay long enough). If they are still in an active session, they ticket is renewed. 1 db hit for each html page, and maybe one for each graphic (haven't figured out how far we want to go yet) to see if the session is still active + 1 db hit for the renewing of the ticket every so often. 3) If the user goes away from the site for awhile, and comes back, the ticket might have expired (1 db hit to check that if they hadn't closed their browser). If the ticket expired, they are bounced to a login page, and things start over with #1. The expired ticket is also deleted from the db (1 db hit there also) Step #2 could be very painful for the db. Apache tells us that we average about 7 requests per second during busy times. Not all of those would be going through this ticketing mechanism (for a highend figure, lets assume an average of 2 requests per second on this ticketed area with peaks of 5-7 requests per second). All the SQL statements would be a select (90%+), and then there would be a delete for every insert I am sure MySQL can handle this, but what type of box would be needed? Ideally the entire thing (Apache reverse proxy with php page rewriting + MySQL ticketing) would reside on one box. I can figure out how much of a box is needed my the Apache part, but the MySQL part is a bit harder for me. Does anyone with a highly active MySQL database site have any input? benji --- Benji Spencer Web Programmer Moody Bible Institute 312-329-2288