DrupalCon 2014: A Perfect Launch, Every Time

A Perfect Launch,

Every Time

DrupalCon Austin 2014

What is a perfect launch?

● Schedule - On Time

● Cost - On Budget

● Scope - On Plan

Why should you care?

A Perfect Launch Recipe

● Launch Team - Onboarding

● Launch Check - Best Practices

● Load Test - Performance Tuning

Launch Team

Onboarding

How we prepare for launch

● Goal: Get rid of all the “uh-oh” moments

● Method: Launch Team

● Stakeholders:

o Project Manager - scheduling, best practices

o Developer - platform knowledge, integration

o Sys Admin - responsibilities, delegation

o Business owner - flawless launch

Have a system and tools

● Specify common workflow requirements

o Repeatable tasks, delegatable

● Project management - Wrike, JIRA, Redmine

● Orientation logistics

o Scheduling - calendar, deadlines

o Real-time communication

Phone, Video Conference, GoToMeeting, IRC

o Training - documentation, Slides, Videos

Mapping the terrain

● Scoping of responsibilities

o Reduce confusion, set stage

● Channels of communication

o Define emergency procedures

o Issue tracking as primary inbox

● Staying in touch

o Available, open, and regular

o Proactive

Launch Check

Best Practices

What is Site Audit?

● Drupal 7 static analysis

o https://drupal.org/project/site_audit

● Best practices

● Actionable report

● Vendor agnostic

o Optional Pantheon specific recommendations

What can an audit analyze?

● Drupal caching settings

● Codebase and file size

● Database structure

● Modules, including duplicate / missing

● Non-standard code structures

● Views caching

● Watchdog logs

Drupal caching settings

Drupal cron

Drupal’s database

Extensions (modules & themes)

Views

Watchdog

● Simple Drupal 7 site

● Apache Bench

○ 10,000 requests to home page (5 concurrent)

● Warmed cache, cleared watchdog

● Comparison

○ Bad config, 1 PHP notice and warning in theme

○ Good config, no PHP notices or warnings

Test Configuration

Result? Doubled performance.

Bad config, errors

● 20 min, 52 sec

● Requests per second: 7.98

● Time per request: 626.192 ms

Good config, no errors

● 10 min, 25 sec

● Requests per second: 15.99

● Time per request: 312.780 ms

Good configuration matters.

Load Testing

Performance Tuning

Why load test?

● Validate response times under peak load

● Smoke - operations under normal load

● Stress - behavior past peak load

o Spike - short bursts

● Capacity - plan for growth

Who should execute load tests?

● Developers execute

● Involve stakeholders

Tools for load testing

● DIY and simple

o Apache Bench

● Complex / dynamic

o Apache JMeter

o Load Impact

o Load Storm

When should I load test?

● Baseline

● Tools

o Xdebug, Webgrind, Devel, Syslog, Watchdog, New Relic

● Incrementally during development

● Prior to launch

Where do I perform load tests?

● Live environment

o Bandwidth

● Resource limitations

● SaaS load testing solutions

What to expect during & after

● Benchmark often (datapoints vs aggregate)

● Be reasonable

● Numbers should dictate expectations (back-end not just Google analytics)

Caching

● Opcode Cache

o APC, Zend Opcache, eAccelerator

● Backends

o Memcached, Redis, MongoDB, file system, APC

● Front-end caching

o Varnish, Squid, reverse-proxy CDNs

Back-end caching

Redis: Engage!

Front-end caching

Anonymous page caching: Disabled!

Testing Varnish with cURL

PHP Slow Log

Nginx error log

MySQL slow log

# Tim e: 130320 7:30:26

# User@ Host: db_user[db_database] @ localhost []

# Q uery_tim e: 4.545309 Lock_tim e: 0.000069 Row s_sent: 219 Row s_exam ined: 254

SET tim estam p= 1363779026;

SELECT option_nam e, option_value FRO M w p_options

W HERE autoload = 'yes';

Pay attention to watchdog

6652 11/O ct 15:05 w arning php W arning: Cannot m odify header inform ation - headers already sent by (output started

at /srv/w w w /code/includes/com m on.inc:2700) in drupal_goto() (line

6643 11/O ct 14:21 notice php Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in cap_ui_preprocess_page() (line 27 of

/srv/w w w /code/sites/all/them es/cap_ui/tem plate.php).

6595 11/O ct 13:00 notice php Notice: Unknow n: Can not authenticate to IM AP server: [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Invalid

credentials (Failure) (errflg= 2) in m ain() (line of ).

Good load test

Bad load test

Interpreting results

● Hard numbers

● Business impact

A Perfect Launch, Every Time

@ getpantheon

irc.freenode.net # pantheon

getpantheon.com

Thank you! Questions?