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Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
I’m looking for anyone who’s tried out any of the txp caching plugins on a very busy site.
I’ve read Sencer’s benchmarking posts, and asy_jpcache looks good, but I wouldn’t mind hearing from anyone who’s put it to the test is a busy live environment.
Anyone out there? :-)
The background is that I run a seasonal site that last year got dugg and slashdotted and del.icio.us/popular’d on serveal days last year, to the point where I had to make static HTML copies of my TXP output to keep the server alive. TXP wasn’t cutting it under those circumstances. Whilst it’d be arrogant for me presume I’ll receive the same level of traffic this year, it’d be foolish of me not to try and prepare just in case that does happen.
One option I’m considering is building my own custom frontend into the TXP database to basically do the real bare minimum that my site needs. I could then build my own caching into that. But I’d really rather use a plugin if I can, as that’ll save me a heap of time!
Thoughts?
drew.
drew mclellan
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
drew, i can’t answer your question lacking experience, nevertheless:
what site is it? and
how many users per hour does TXP have to bare there, when it gets hot?
there’s been a thread here not too long ago, which mentiones that a site with loads of images could handle up to 15.000 users/h – which gets me to think, that your problem could be a server-releated one. is your site on a dedicated server and does the site have a fast backbone connection, or is maybe your isp limiting traffic per hour?
Last edited by jayrope (2006-11-08 03:15:34)
A hole turned upside down is a dome, when there’s also gravity.
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
33.48 req’s per second… that’s… just… whack. but read down!
Proud Canadian. Toronto Locksmith , Actualize Consulting
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
jayrope wrote:
drew, i can’t answer your question lacking experience, nevertheless:
what site is it? and
how many users per hour does TXP have to bare there, when it gets hot?
The site is http://24ways.org/
It was sustaining around 4 requests a second throughout December last year, which is give or take around the 15k an hour you quoted. At peak times, though (like the first day when we got slammed) it’s more than that.
Whilst sure, I could throw more CPU and RAM at it (it’s a VM so I can do that on the fly, albeit at a cost) I’d rather make sure I’m getting the best performance out of what I have first. It seems daft to be hitting the database every time for a page that only changes when a new comment is added (an infrequent event compared to the number of views).
drew.
drew mclellan
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Drew wrote:
It seems daft to be hitting the database every time for a page that only changes when a new comment is added (an infrequent event compared to the number of views).
That’s exactly the circumstances this plugin was written for. I think it would be a good fit for your needs.
Also: Keep in mind that nothing which needs a parser/interpreter/… (i.e., any programming language) can [by design] ever be as fast as letting the webserver serve static files. So you might also want to move move your css to static files on the server, if you expect high traffic (and do not plan on changing css often).
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Sencer wrote:
That’s exactly the circumstances this plugin was written for. I think it would be a good fit for your needs.
Ok, so I just tried it out using the same ApacheBenchmark options Jason used in the above quoted post.
Before: 11 requests per second
After: 99 requests per second
May I kiss you?
Also: Keep in mind that nothing which needs a parser/interpreter/… (i.e., any programming language) can [by design] ever be as fast as letting the webserver serve static files. So you might also want to move move your css to static files on the server, if you expect high traffic (and do not plan on changing css often).
Right, exactly. I already serve my CSS this way anyway (makes it easier for source control too), and similarly I have almost zero decorative graphics on the site – only content.
I think this plugin is going to make all the difference this year. Thanks Sencer!
drew.
drew mclellan
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Hey Drew, I just went to the site and the front page loads fast, but I’m getting extremely long load times on individal articles. In fact “Debugging CSS with DOM inspector” never loaded at all for me. Maybe you’re tweaking….
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Yup, I’ve just updated the gravatar plugin I was using, which now (thankfully) includes caching. The site is currently attempting to cache hundreds of gravatars from the painfully slow gravatar.com server.
Unfortunately, the plugin blocks execution of the page whilst it does its job, so might not be practical.
drew mclellan
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#9 2006-11-08 16:29:03
- Ace of Dubs
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- Registered: 2006-04-17
- Posts: 446
Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Yup.. Sencers plugin kicks ass
Your site is blazing fast mate! Except for those gravatars. I was considering using them for my site, but they really slow things down.. a LOT
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Yes, I don’t recommend using gravatars until they have their new server in place. It’s supposed to be Any Day Now, but we’ve been hearing that for a year or more.
Gravatars seem to be a really great idea, hampered by terrible execution.
drew mclellan
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
Drew, how and where do I use apacheBenchmark?
BTW your site has some really useful info. Thanks
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Re: Run a busy TXP site? Opinions on caching needed
If you’re on a mac on linux box, the command is just ab so do ab -h for usage instructions.
You can see examples in this post from Jason but note that you’ll want to set the concurrency to something much lower than 100. I was testing with a concurrency of 10.
drew mclellan
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