Performance Tuning PHP on IBM i

© All rights reserved. Zend Technologies, Inc.

Performance Tuning PHP on IBM i

Mike Pavlak

Solution Consultant

Alan Seiden

Strategic Business Systems

Watch the recorded webinar: http://bit.ly/A4NjYM

http://bit.ly/A4NjYM



Agenda

•What affects performance

•Zend Server configuration

•Review hardware architecture

•Explore Web specific opportunities

•Where to get additional help

•Wrap up

•Q&A

2


Performance is in the eye of the beholder…

Perception is reality

Many pieces to the performance puzzle

Rarely a single silver bullet

Performance tuning is a journey, not a destination

Learn as you go

Commercial websites look great…

• And can be great motivators for change

PHP is often accused but rarely convicted

3


Major contributors to performance issues

•Additive workload

•Transitional workload

•Organic growth

•Network infrastructure

•Entropy

•A piece of advice…

When you see these coming…GET IN FRONT OF THEM

• Or get run over!

4 Insert->Header & Footer


Speed = money

•Google’s experiment

Google Search lists 10 results per page

They tested pages of 30 results

• Traffic and revenue dropped by 20%

• Why?

– 10 results took .4 seconds to generate

– 30 results took .9 seconds

• A ½ second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic

Source:

http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa

-mayer-at-web-20.html

Performance Tuning PHP on IBM i | 5


Speed = competitiveness

•Search engine ranking

Since early 2010, Google’s search algorithm has included speed

Faster sites rank higher, all else being equal

•Consumers lose patience with slow sites

With many choices, users give up on sites that drag

Patience has decreased since the 1990s

•Slower sites often waste bandwidth and CPU

Costly infrastructure driven by performance mistakes



How do we improve performance

•Subject of this webinar

Doing what you are doing now!

•From the softer side

Communication with other teams is essential

• While it is encouraged to bang you head against the wall…

• Do not suffer in silence, reach out for help

Education

• If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!

Services

• There are folks who may know more than you. Hire them.




www.zend.com

Looking at Zend Server Administration


Zend Server for IBM i 5.6

•Zend Server is Home Base

•Configuration options abound

•We will look at

FastCGI settings

Logs

Extensions



Fast CGI

•Mechanism for communicating between Apache and PHP

•Built in with 10 server jobs at the time of installation

•This should conform to concurrent processes

•Watch this as more workload is migrated to web



Fast CGI

•Changing this

is something that should be considered

But not taken lightly (system resources, etc.)

•File to edit:

/www/zendsvr/conf/fastcgi.conf

SetEnv="PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=10"

•But don’t forget…

StartProcesses = “2” * PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN = 8 is 16 total worker jobs

http://www.youngiprofessionals.com/wiki/FastCGI

http://www.systeminetwork.com/article/other-

languages/fastcgi-boosts-php-performance-on-ibm-i-66195


http://www.youngiprofessionals.com/wiki/FastCGI

http://www.systeminetwork.com/article/other-languages/fastcgi-boosts-php-performance-on-ibm-i-66195


















PHP Logs

• IFS performance, minimize read/writes

Alan will discuss more

But what about the logs

•Consider the event monitor

•Read the logs

•Reduce the messages

•Clip the log

/usr/local/zendsvr/var/log/php.log



Rename the log

•Zend Server will create more!

REN OBJ('/usr/local/zendsvr/var/log/php.log') NEWOBJ(phplog20120306.txt)



Extensions

•PHP travels with a posse

70+ extensions

Many are used every day

But if not used, may be turned off…

Default,

• Zend Server for IBM i shipped with DB2 on and SQL Server off

• Look at the Zend Server admin interface

– Server setup Extensions

– Like a light switch



IBM i administration

•PTF’s

Current cumulative & group for HTTP

•Memory pools

Isolate memory from other attacks

•Workload partitioning

With i6.1 & i7.1 can protect processor without LPAR

•Understanding demands on the systems

If the boss doesn’t believe you, have your BP back you up!

Performance Monitor tools

3rd party



WRKSYSSTS – The first place to go!!!




www.zend.com

Tools


Firebug add-on graphs performance

•Firebug

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firebug/

Even better with FirePHP and Page Speed




www.zend.com

Use Compression


Compression reduces file size

• Called gzip or mod_deflate (the same for our purposes)

• Compresses, speeds up html, javascript, css, any text

• Add two lines (OK, two long lines) to httpd.conf Apache config

LoadModule deflate_module

/QSYS.LIB/QHTTPSVR.LIB/QZSRCORE.SRVPGM

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-php

application/json text/css application/x-javascript

application/javascript text/html



Netflix saw improvement with gzip/deflate

•Saw 13-25% performance improvement

•Cut outbound traffic in half

That saves money for a busy site such as Netflix

•Details of Netflix improvement:

http://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/improving-netflix-

performance-experience

• It really works!

•Tutorial on my blog:

http://www.alanseiden.com/2010/08/13/maximize-zend-

server-performance-with-apache-compression/


http://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/improving-netflix-performance-experience









www.zend.com

Reduce HTTP Requests


Requests cause “blocking” in browser

•Browsers typically limit themselves to 2 parallel requests to

a given server

•File requests stack up, blocked by prev. requests

•


• Above, even “not modified” files caused blocking

• Solution: reduce number of images or improve

caching via “Expires” headers

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_expires.html


More ways to reduce “blocking”

• If many .js or .css files are used:

Combine them into fewer files

Move contents of smaller .js or .css files inline to your pages,

eliminating those external files

Page Speed tool will help you decide




www.zend.com

Ajax: friend or foe?


AJAX=Asynchronous Javascript And XML

•AJAX updates parts of a page without reloading the whole

page

•Not always XML. These days, JSON too

•Requests and file sizes are generally small

•Meant to bring SPEED to the web

•Potential problems if overused



AJAX mistake #1

•Too much of a good thing

Requiring several AJAX requests to complete before the page itself can load fully

Too many HTTP requests at once

I’ve seen a situation where 4 AJAX requests were embedded in a page load

• The AJAX doesn’t even start till the page loads

• Causes “blocking” as the requests pile up, waiting for the previous ones to complete

Solution: when page first loads, embed AJAX content right in the page

• Re-use logic on the server side when building page

• Subsequent updates can be done with AJAX



AJAX mistake #2

•Duplicate requests

Might go unnoticed with javascript library tools (Dojo, jQuery...)

Happens more than you would expect! Common, actually



AJAX mistake #3

• Dynamically generating static content (don’t do that)

• Solutions:

Change to static files

Cache URLs (e.g. with Zend Data Cache if using PHP, or Apache caching)

See example below, before and after caching




www.zend.com

Keep-alive


Keep HTTP connections alive • “Keep-alive” setting in Apache (or any web server)

• The HTTP job will stay open, waiting for you

Perfect when downloading many images, css, js files

• Configurable by number of seconds to keep connection open,

number of files to be downloaded

KeepAlive On

KeepAliveTimeout 15

See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html#keepalive

• Don’t overdo it—you are locking out other users from that HTTP

job while it’s dedicated to you



Connecting takes time

•Clues that Keepalive is off

“Connection: close”, “Connecting”

•Example bottom right: 3.6 seconds “Connecting” (longer

than average but it really happened)



What you see when Keep-alive is on

•Firebug’s “Net” tab shows “Connection: Keep-Alive”, and,

here, timeout=300 seconds (5 minutes)


• Zero seconds to

connect

• Keep-alive is working!



www.zend.com

Persistent DB Connections


Persistence = connection pool

•On IBM i, job initialization is relatively slow

Gives us good things—auditing, logging, security

Solution: a pool of pre-initialized jobs

•Pre-started DB2 jobs save time

Generally run in subsystem QSYSWRK, job name QSQSRVR

These prestart jobs can be configured with CHGPJE command

• In PHP, persistent connections reuse initialized jobs

db2_pconnect()

Dramatic speed boost



Use db2_pconnect() to connect persistently

•resource db2_pconnect ( string $database , string

$username , string $password [, array $options ] )

•Persistent is much faster than non-persistent

db2_pconnect can reuse connections, reducing the time needed

to connect (after the first time) to almost zero

•How db2_pconnect() reuses connections

Connections defined by database, username, and password

Tries to reuse an existing connection matching these 3 params

db2_close() on a persistent connection does nothing

db2_pclose() forces the conn to close



db2_pconnect() example with library list

$database = 'MYDB';

$user = 'MYUSER';

$password = 'MYPASS';

// set library list (works the same for connect or pconnect)

$options = array('i5_naming' => DB2_I5_NAMING_ON,

'i5_libl' => 'MYLIB1 MYLIB2');

$conn = db2_pconnect($database, $user, $password, $options);

if ($conn) {

echo "Connection succeeded.";

} else {

echo "Connection failed.";

}

// MYTABLE will be found, if in library MYLIB1 or MYLIB2

$stmt=db2_exec($conn,"SELECT * FROM MYTABLE");



Rules for using persistence

•Because connections are shared when defined with an

identical database, user, and password, please:

Avoid unpredictable results by also specifying the same $options

for these connections

Promote sharing of jobs by minimizing the number of user profiles

that you connect with

• Each user profile creates a new set of database jobs

• Each set of jobs consumes system resources

•More information:

“DB2 and PHP Best Practices on IBM i” at

http://alanseiden.com/presentations



New open source PHP IBM i toolkit • Ships with Zend Server 5.6+

PTFs and hotfixes on download page

Many improvements since first release

• Information and updates:

Young i Professionals site

• http://youngiprofessionals.com/wiki/XMLSERVICE

Zend Forum for Q&A and tips

• http://forums.zend.com/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=41648

• “PHP on IBM i”->”Zend Server for IBM i”->”New Toolkit”

• Efficient: use single DB2 connection for SQL and Toolkit

http://forums.zend.com/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=46688

Persistent connection is the fastest




www.zend.com

Wrap it up


Help!

• I’ve got PHP applications and not sure what to do?

•Do your homework

Read, learn, explore

Talk in forums (Zend.com and midrange.com)

•Zend Services

Application Audit

• Up to 50,000 lines of code

• Review on site or off (knowledge transfer!)

• Report summary & remediation available



Zend Performance Audit

42 Zend Professional Services

Comprehensive Methodology

Detailed evaluation of your application and environment

Detailed analysis of performance patterns and behaviors

Provide report and improvements recommendations

Proven Success

Delivered to numerous Global 1000 companies

Accelerated performance across industries

Methodologies applied to hundreds of applications

Delivered by the PHP Company Experts

Unparalleled experience in PHP and Zend Server

Methodology developed by the architects of PHP

Utilizing Zend standard benchmarks


Zend Server features (Full version)

•Event Monitor

Become aware of issues before your users call

•Code Tracing

Black box flight recorder for PHP scripts

•Caching

Op-code (Alan discussed & available with CE)

Data (Also available with CE)

Page

•Job Queue

SBMJOB for PHP!!!



Webcasts

•April 12 – Stored Procedures Part II (RPG, etc.)

•May 2 – Additional Functions of DB2 with PHP on IBM i

Your thoughts???



Events where you’ll find Zend…


•User groups

WMCPA (Lake Geneva, WI) Mar 20-22 (Mike & Alan)

• http://wmcpa.org/

NEUGC (Boston, MA) April 2-4

• http://neugc.org/

Alan:

March 29: COMMON webcast: more performance tips http://www.common.org/index.php/webcasts/upcoming-webcasts.html

April 5: live online event with System i Network New PHP Toolkit for IBM i http://www.systeminetwork.com/events/upcoming-events

In New York City? I host the NYC Zend Framework Meetup http://www.meetup.com/ZendFramework-NYCmetro/

http://wmcpa.org/

http://neugc.org/


Events where you’ll find Zend…(cont.)


•Major venues

RPG & DB2 Summit (Ft. Worth, TX) Mar 25-28

• http://www.systemideveloper.com/Summit/conferences.html

COMMON Annual Meeting and Expo (Anaheim, CA) May 6-9

• http://www.common.org/index.php/annualmeeting.html

COMMON Fall Conference (Columbus, OH) Sep 24-26

• http://www.common.org/index.php/fall-conference-and-expo.html

http://www.systemideveloper.com/Summit/conferences.html

http://www.common.org/index.php/annualmeeting.html

http://www.common.org/index.php/fall-conference-and-expo.html








Contact | Get tips


Free PHP/i tips by email:

http://alanseiden.com/tips

Alan Seiden Strategic Business Systems, Inc,

201-327-9400 17 S. Franklin Tpk

[email protected] Ramsey, NJ, 07446

http://alanseiden.com Twitter: @alanseiden

© All rights reserved. Zend Technologies, Inc. 48

Q&A

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[email protected]

Watch the recorded webinar: http://bit.ly/A4NjYM

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