php acceleator + multiple eZ sites on a dedicated server : Performance ?

Friday 04 February 2005 2:25:01 am

Hi there!

I'm running some 20 ez sites (ranging from version 3.0.2 to 3.5) on a dedicated server running debian 3.1, apache 1.3.33, php 4.3.10 and mmcache. the box is opteron-based (but runs 32bit).

The same sites used to be located on a redhat 7.3 box with no php-accelerator, and after porting, the performance has increased considerably.

That said, there are more than one factor deciding the performance of ez Publish. The new box has better hardware, 2.6.x kernel AND the accelerator.

I have seen no sign of mmcache not oerforming as it should. But then again 20 sites are not that many.

Many people have complained about ez Publish and speed. But the ez Crew have done ALOT to speed up things, and still have their focus on it.

Felix

Publlic Relations Manager
Greater Stavanger
www.greaterstavanger.com

Friday 04 February 2005 3:19:01 am

In an ideal world, you should have enough RAM to hold all content in RAM. Now depending on the amount of media (JPG, Flash or even Video) that obviously won't work for some sites. In that case, you should try to enough RAM so that MySQL DBs are in RAM. The most crucial point, however: you're box must not swap. Swapping kills performance.

No matter how many sites, I'd always use mmcache with ezPublish.

In my opinion, ezPublish is currently more CPU than IO bound. It spends most time in template processing (thus ViewCache should always be activated on production sites), so SCSI drives might not be needed that badly (they are, however, probably more reliable than IDE ones which may still make it worthwile).

In my experiences, a 2GHz machine serves up around 10 cached pages per second and all the images etc (which is basically nothing compared to the dynamic stuff). Maxing out a 2mbit pipe is entirely possible. It however won't standup to slashdot ;-)

Visit http://triligon.org

Friday 04 February 2005 4:03:55 am

Hi again!

You're right Fredrik. The ablitity to "split" your site into a static and a dynamic part is really going to make differance. Great idea!

As for my box, to answer Francis' question:

(single) Opteron 244
512 mb RAM
120 GB SATA disks in a Adaptech 2410 RAID (mirroring)

Felix

Publlic Relations Manager
Greater Stavanger
www.greaterstavanger.com

Friday 04 February 2005 6:05:24 am

yes, we saw that new spec and I think it is in the 3.6 cycle.

Now for Tony, we thought about the same and that's what we heard...thousands of cached files causes a real performance slowdown...That was the point of the inital question !

Francis.

Friday 04 February 2005 6:24:44 am

With mmcache, you can disable disk caching, so all cached files reside in memory. That should probably not give a performance penalty then. Also it limits the amount of cached files quite effectively.

If this is really such a problem, maybe one should ask the developers for per host configurable cache dirs? Or some sort of dynamic hiearchy that only places 100 files per dir?

Also the issue probably highly depends on the caching strategy of the underlying OS. If directory look ups in large dirs are efficient, it shouldn't pose much of a problem.

Visit http://triligon.org

Friday 04 February 2005 6:48:03 am

Hi,

I am using mmcache and have some ez3 sites on my server (around 10).

a) use it!
b) exclude cache dirs of ez if you have more than 5 sites and if your compiled-template directory contains large (and a large amount of) files. (e.g. one of my compiled template dir contains 70mb files ...)
c) don't use template compression AND mmache at one time (there is no performance increase)

php.ini ... mmcache settings ... exclude a directory and its content:

mmcache.filter="!/var/www/your/ez3/site/var/*"

Keep an eye on your mmcache-directory ... it can grow fast!

HTH

Kind regards,
Georg.

Best wishes,
Georg.

--
http://www.schicksal.com Horoskop website which uses eZ Publish since 2004