There are two kinds of connections that moxi either creates or handles: data channel traffic (for memcached key-value requests) and management channel traffic (to learn about the cluster configuration and re-configuration).

Management channel traffic is REST-based, and by default uses port 8091. These are specified via the REST URL's described in the previous section. The JSON messages passed over these HTTP/REST channels are all about the cluster's configuration (and re-configuration events).

Data channel traffics occurs on bucket-oriented ports, like 11211. The messages passing over these connections are key-value requests such as get or incr.

Much less traffic passes over the management HTTP/REST channels, as cluster health and membership changes tend to be infrequent.

However, the management channels are important, as a client-side moxi works best when it receives relevant cluster management change information quickly. moxi servers will still work even with slow management channel news, but will inefficiently be making requests to the wrong servers and receiving errors that force moxi to retry requests on other servers.

As mentioned in the previous section, you may apply industry standard tools like HTTP reverse-proxies to help increase availability and ease of configurability. An HTTP proxy can help make a Couchbase proxy perform better because it will improve the management channel (HTTP/REST) operations. By adding a level-of-indirection via a reverse-proxy, you can allow each client-side moxi to have a simple URL as shown above.