Apache timeout configuration

We are using apache 2.2 version and we have three servers configured for load balancing purposes (as shown below)

BalancerMember http://node1:port/ route=node1
BalancerMember xxxx://node2:xxxx/ route=node2
BalancerMember xxxx://node3:xxxx/ route=node3

      

        
        
        
      

    

However, the backend application nodes configured in the balancing item take a lot of processing time and so we ran into timeout related issues as shown below

"The specified timeout has expired: proxy server: status bar reading errors from remote server"

Since I had a .conf file set up, I had to explicitly add the lines below to avoid picking the default timeout value from the default http-default.conf file.

<VirtualHost server:port>
Timeout 500
<Proxy  balancer://xxxxx>
BalancerMember http://node1:port/ route=node1 timeout=500
</Proxy>
</VirtualHost>

      

        
        
        
      

    

So now my questions are:

• Do I need to explicitly set the timeout value at both levels as shown above,
  a) Timeout 500 out of proxy.

  b) timeout = 500 at BalancerMember.

  I read online that if Apache BalancerMember timeout is not configured Apache global timing. Please suggest ..

• Also, please suggest the exact parameters to be configured when concurrent requests are expected?

thank