Jeff Rigby on Scaling Drupal in the Enterprise

© 2009 DPCI. All Rights Reserved.

Drupal for the Enterprise

Seminar by DPCI featuring Dries Buytaert

Michael Mainiero, and Jeff Rigby

Thursday, October 29, 2009


Drupal for the Enterprise

Presented by Jeff RigbyWeb Application Architect, DPCI

Thursday, October 29th, 2009


Goals of this PresentationDescribe how to scale Drupal from an out-of-box build to an enterprise level solutionExplain some of the approaches DPCI has used with our clients to meet their scaling needs


Scaling DrupalAnonymous is easy to scale— Mirror servers— Reverse-Proxy caches— Drupal only manages the content

Authenticated traffic is more difficult— Each dynamic page must be processed by PHP— Requires more horsepower


Built In OptionsConfiguration— Drupal page/block cache— Page compression— Aggregate JS/CSS

Coding— Drupal cache (use it!)— Use static variables when possible

Immediately usable with no additional modules

Built In Options Results


5.8

4.8

96.5

4.8

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Anon

Auth

Requests Per Second

Optimized

OOB


Quick OptimizationsBoostMemcachedOpcode Cache


BoostAmazing performance gainAnonymous users onlyServes static filesNo additional software or hardware needed


MemcachedEasy to install on the serverMinor module configurationRemoves the cache from the databaseOptionally removes session tracking from the databaseSignificantly reduces MySQL statements


Opcode Cache— A few out there (APC, Zend Optimizer, XCache,

eAccelerator)— Easy to install— Pre-compiles PHP in memory— Reduces server load

Combined Results


5.8

4.8

427

15.1

0 100 200 300 400 500

Anon

Auth

Request Per Second

Optimized

OOB


MySQL TweaksTune your MySQL configuration to your server. MySQL Tuner is very useful: http://blog.mysqltuner.comEnable the query cache! Enable the slow query log to spot problem queries


Apache SOLRModule provides drop-in replacement for searchGets search out of DrupalAvoids expensive node_load() callsAvailable as a hosted solution from Acquia


Reverse-Proxy CacheSquid or VarnishRun on the same server or clustered on multiple external serversCan reduce web server traffic by 90%+ if serving the entire site (anonymous traffic)For dynamic sites, offload all static files (JS, CSS, images, etc.) and let Apache focus on PHPLow overheadTip: Override the expires header (— Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT

Reverse-Proxy Cache



Use a CDNMany options out there: Akamai, Amazon, CacheFlyGenerally easy to setupOff-load entire site or only static files (JS, CSS, images, etc.)Can be expensive


Static Page TipsJavascript!Store dynamic values in a cookieUse AJAX to load small portions of dynamic contentUse Javascript to replace dates with natural language “About 4 Minutes Ago”


Load Balanced Web ServersUse rsync to keep Web servers synched or NFS web rootAdvanced load balancers can handle server failuresEasy to add or remove servers with no site downtimeRun server intensive tasks (cron, data import, etc.) on an internal server to avoid site slow downs


Multiple MySQL DatabasesMaster / Slave Setup— Minimum of 2 servers— Drupal 5 and 6 require minor core hacks— Built into Drupal 7!— Be mindful of database lag— Reliant on master database

Use Memcached to share the query cache across all serversClustering and distributed configurations

Sample Large Scale Site



Questions?Jeff’ s Blog:

www.databasepublish.com/blog/jrigby

Scaling Drupal

Technology

Jeff Rigby on Scaling Drupal in the Enterprise