Webserver

Of course you should use mod_perl 2.0 ( http://perl.apache.org/ ). It's much faster (~ * 100) than pure cgi. But needs more RAM. So your httpd with mod_perl will be about 16 MB (~10MB shared).

Pre-establish database connections

You can have the database connections pre-established on startup of the web server. This saves time (see README.webserver).

Preloaded modules - startup.pl

Use the scripts/apache-perl-startup.pl (mod_perl 1.0) or scripts/apache2-perl-startup.pl (mod_perl 2.0) startup script for preloaded/precompiled Perl modules on your mod_perl webserver to be faster and smaller (see README.webserver).

Reload Perl modules when updated on disk

Per default Apache::Reload (mod_perl 2.0) is used in scripts/apache2-httpd.include.conf. Disable it and you will get 8% more speed. But remember to restart the web server if you change Kernel/Config.pm or any other modules! Important: this would also mean you can't use the OTRS-Packet-Manager via the web interface, you need to use CMD - bin/opm.pl.

Choosing the Right Strategy

If you have a really large installation (over 1,000 new tickets a day and over 40 agents) it is a good idea to read "Choosing the Right Strategy" ( http://perl.apache.org/docs/1.0/guide/strategy.html ).

mod_gzip/mod_deflate

If your bandwidth is a little bit small, use mod_gzip for Apache1 ( http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/ ) or mod_deflate for Apache2 (default module in Apache2). If you have an html page with 45k, mod_gzip/mod_deflate compresses it. The page will be about 7k.