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?
