Oxwall Software Documentation

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====== Improving site performance ======



There are several ways of increasing your site performance. They can be divided into two categories: server optimizations (changing server configuration, installing third-party software) and software optimizations (code optimization, tasks distribution). We recommend using Nginx + eAccelerator for server optimization and use CDN (Cloud Files) for software optimization and better website performance as result.

===== Server optimization =====



==== Nginx ====


Nginx does the same work Apache does yet does it much faster and uses less server resources.
License: free
Requirements: VPS or dedicated server

Nginx according to Wikipedia is: a lightweight, high-performance Web server/reverse proxy and e-mail (IMAP/POP3) proxy, licensed under a BSD-like license. It runs on UNIX, GNU/Linux, BSD variants, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows. 

Even though 60% of the world’s web sites are powered by Apache, Nginx is becoming more and more popular alternative, mostly because it is able to serve more requests per second with less server resources because of its architecture. Nginx can handle a large number of concurrent requests quickly with very little overhead. 

So if Apache uses 4 worker processes (threaded mode), 30% CPU and 17MB of memory to server 6.500 requests per second, Nginx uses just one worker process, 15% CPU and just a megabyte of memory to serve 11.500 requests per second.

Below are some graphs from the web that indicates advantages of using Nginx:

{{:userguide:performance:2298693485_df1606c495.jpg|}}


{{:userguide:performance:response-time-nginx-504x575.png|}}


Check the following link to see how can Nginx be installed on your server: [[http://www.whmsecurity.com/whm/how-to-install-nginx-on-cpanel-the-easy-way]] 

Also, you can contact your hosting company to get it installed for you.


==== eAccelerator ====


eAccelerator speeds up PHP code execution by caching it in memory.

License: free
Requirements: VPS or dedicated server

eAccelerator according to Wikipedia is: a PHP accelerator derived from the MMCache extension for the PHP programming language. eAccelerator provides a bytecode cache. eAccelerator is open source and thereby free to use and distribute.

eAccelerator is a free open-source PHP accelerator & optimizer. It increases the performance of PHP scripts by caching them in their compiled state, so that the overhead of compiling is almost completely eliminated. It also optimizes scripts to speed up their execution. eAccelerator typically reduces server load and increases the speed of your PHP code by 1-10 times.

eAccelerator stores compiled PHP scripts in shared memory and executes code directly from it. It creates locks only for a short time, while searching for a compiled PHP script in the cache, so one script can be executed simultaneously by several engines. Files that can't fit in shared memory are cached on disk only.

Below are charts of CPU and memory usage before installing eAccelerator:

{{:userguide:performance:cpu_before.gif?direct|}}


And after installing eAccelerator:

{{:userguide:performance:cpu_after.gif?direct|}}


Also, you can contact your hosting company to get it installed for you.

===== Software optimization =====



==== CDN ====


Requirements: 
- any hosting acount
- an account with any CDN network (Cloud Files) 

CDN (Content Delivery Network) - this system that allows storing website static data (photos, icons, CSS, JavaScript) in it and provides very fast access to the data.
Every time user opens a webpage, browser downloads a large amount of images, CSS and JavaScript files from that website, thereby browser sends a separate request to the website to download every image. So, 100 images equals 100 requests to your website. This causes high server load and slows down the speed of loading pages for members. By moving all static data from your website to CDN you will reduce the number of requests for 60%-70% and increase page load speed.

{{:userguide:performance:screen_shot_2012-11-20_at_3.33.02_pm.png?direct&600|}}


Main advantages of using CDN are:

high scalability that allows you saving money and not paying for an additional server to increase your site traffic;
faster static content load, which means more satisfied users;
lower packets loss and network latency, as a result your static content is delivered to users faster and without losses;
CDNs are more reliable as they can still provide high quality static content even with network or hardware outages. Your static content will be available 99.99% as if one server is down, your files will be easily sent to users from other server;
less server load as all static files are hosted on other servers.

Oxwall has integrated CDN system. Please find more info here: [[install:cloud_hosting|Configure with cloud storages]]
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