WordCamp RVA 2011 - Performance & Tuning

WordPress PerformanceTimothy Wood @codearachnidwww.ImagineSimplicity.com || www.codearachnid.com

How do you percieve performance?

Change behavior to influence perception

Percieved Performance:Responsive● Feedback● Progressive● Escape or Distract● Describe

Actual Performance:● Optimize● Cache● Minimize● Workflow

Low hanging fruit for WordPress:

● Frontend○ Minimize○ Sprites

● Caching○ Asset delivery○ Chunking

● Application ○ Theme○ Plugins

● Server Setups○ OS choice & tweaking

Battle of the brawn

● Process based● Req increase RAM ● Gobs of features● More use cases

● Event based● RAM use is stable● Speed > features● no .htaccess

Like Apache, Nginx has all the features you would expect from a leading Web server. It is stable, secure and very easy to configure.

Real world comparisons:

9794 req/5 min32 req/secondOnly site on fresh VPS install, with minimal graphics, scripts, css.

17479 req/5 min60 req/secondOne of several sites on VPS, photographer portofolio, heavy graphics, minimal scripts & css.Stress tests by http://loadimpact.com

Real world comparisions (cont.):

Performance

But wait... There's more!

- WP Plugin: nginx Compatibility - Pretty URLS:

/etc/nginx/sites-available/nginx.conf

if (!-e $request_filename) {rewrite ^ /index.php last;

}

Tips for optimizing application layer

Theme:● Simplify & Reduce● Keep Code Updated● Repair MySQL DB● Log Slow Queries● Move CSS to top &

Javascript to bottom

Plugins:● Delete Unused● Combine Functionality● Avoid Bad Plugins

Caching with static content + CDN

Plugins:● W3TC● WP Super Cache● Hyper Cache● DB Cache Reloaded CDN:● Amazon S3 &

Cloudfront

Benefit:● At least 10x

improvement in site performance

● “Instant” second page views

● Reduced page load time● Improved web server

performance● Up to 80% Bandwidth

savings

W3 Total Cache (setup walkthrough)

1. Sign-up for Amazon S3 & Cloudfront2. Install W3 Total Cache Plugin within

WordPress3. Follow W3 Total Cache Instructions within

WordPress admin panel4. Log in to Cloudfront control panel and create

a Distribution for your newly created bucked

CDN explained & expounded

A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a system of computers containing copies of data placed at various nodes of a network. * The optimal number is somewhere between 1 and 5 hosts (1 main host plus 4 hosts on which to parallelize cacheable resources). As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't use more than 1 host for fewer than 6 resources; fewer than 2 resources on a single host is especially wasteful. It should never be necessary to use more than 5 hosts (not counting hosts serving resources over which you have no control, such as ads). (source: Google Page Speed)

Interface polish & performance

● Yslow, Page Speed, Speed Tracer● Minify and combine all CSS and JavaScript● gZip, image sprites, smush.it● Cleanup your markup● Improve wait messaging

● Build on a good foundation● Pull the weeds of unnecessary code● Optimize browser rendering● Minimize request overhead● Minimize round-trip times● Minimize payload size● Optimize caching● Change perception

What did we learn?

Find me online:

@CODEARACHNID