Re:How do you scale your web application?
by aditya on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @10:19AM
(#770478)
Mini-guide to scaling your app:
Step 1. Measure, measure, measure: response time, page load time, query time
Step 2. Identify bottlenecks: Why isn't your page load snappy? Too much JS? Round-trip to DB is killing you? Your mongrels are overloaded?
Tip: Use YSlow for frontend measurements and take most of its advice
Step 3. Fix bottlenecks: Lots of techniques to fix faster frontend performance, start with YSlow above. Architectural and backend issues can be solved with a combination of hardware (load balancers, more web boxes, more db boxes) and software (better caching strategies, evolve your DB architecture, break up your application into smaller micro-apps that scale independently)
Step 4: Go to step 1 and keep at it.
I'd have to say that if you're not doing Step 1, you're going to fail now, or eventually. As one of my first mentors taught me:
Step 1. Measure, measure, measure: response time, page load time, query time
Step 2. Identify bottlenecks: Why isn't your page load snappy? Too much JS? Round-trip to DB is killing you? Your mongrels are overloaded?
Tip: Use YSlow for frontend measurements and take most of its advice
Step 3. Fix bottlenecks: Lots of techniques to fix faster frontend performance, start with YSlow above. Architectural and backend issues can be solved with a combination of hardware (load balancers, more web boxes, more db boxes) and software (better caching strategies, evolve your DB architecture, break up your application into smaller micro-apps that scale independently)
Step 4: Go to step 1 and keep at it.
I'd have to say that if you're not doing Step 1, you're going to fail now, or eventually. As one of my first mentors taught me:
"You cannot improve, what you don't measure"