1. High Performance
WordPress II
Fast and secure

2. What I LOVE About
WordPress

3. About Me
• Barry Abrahamson
• Systems Wrangler, Automattic
• http://barry.wordpress.com/contact-me/

4. WordPress.com

5. WordPress.com
• Launched in August 2005

6. WordPress.com
• Launched in August 2005
• ~9 million blogs today

7. WordPress.com
• Launched in August 2005
• ~9 million blogs today
• Billions of HTTP requests per day

8. WordPress.com
• Launched in August 2005
• ~9 million blogs today
• Billions of HTTP requests per day
• Billions of MySQL queries per month

9. What is Performance?

10. What is Performance?
• Fast

11. What is Performance?
• Fast
• Scalable

12. What is Performance?
• Fast
• Scalable
• Secure

13. Lifecycle

14. Lifecycle
• Shared hosting ( 95% )

15. Lifecycle
• Shared hosting ( 95% )
• VPS (Virtual Private Server) ( < 5% )

16. Lifecycle
• Shared hosting ( 95% )
• VPS (Virtual Private Server) ( < 5% )
• Dedicated Server ( < 2% )

17. Lifecycle
• Shared hosting ( 95% )
• VPS (Virtual Private Server) ( < 5% )
• Dedicated Server ( < 2% )
• 2 Dedicated Servers ( < 1% )

18. Lifecycle
• Shared hosting ( 95% )
• VPS (Virtual Private Server) ( < 5% )
• Dedicated Server ( < 2% )
• 2 Dedicated Servers ( < 1% )
• > 2 Dedicated Servers ( < 1% )

19. Upgrade!

20. Shared Hosting

21. Shared Hosting
• FTP access (maybe SSH/SFTP)

22. Shared Hosting
• FTP access (maybe SSH/SFTP)
• No server management overhead

23. Shared Hosting
• FTP access (maybe SSH/SFTP)
• No server management overhead
• Less control and fewer options

24. Shared Hosting
• FTP access (maybe SSH/SFTP)
• No server management overhead
• Less control and fewer options
• Cheap! ($4 - $20/month)

25. Shared Hosting

26. Shared Hosting
• Run the latest version of WordPress (easy)

27. Shared Hosting
• Run the latest version of WordPress (easy)
• http://wordpress.org/hosting/

28. Shared Hosting
• Run the latest version of WordPress (easy)
• http://wordpress.org/hosting/
• Plugins and Themes directory - http://
wordpress.org/extend/

29. Shared Hosting

30. Shared Hosting
• WP Super Cache

31. Shared Hosting
• WP Super Cache
• 25 - 50x capacity/throughput increase

32. Shared Hosting
• WP Super Cache
• 25 - 50x capacity/throughput increase
• Digg, Slashdot,Yahoo Buzz

33. VPS

34. VPS
• Virtual Private Server

35. VPS
• Virtual Private Server
• Between shared and dedicated

36. VPS
• Virtual Private Server
• Between shared and dedicated
• Specific resources allocated to you (good
and bad)

37. VPS
• Virtual Private Server
• Between shared and dedicated
• Specific resources allocated to you (good
and bad)
• Usually have shell “root” access

38. VPS
• Virtual Private Server
• Between shared and dedicated
• Specific resources allocated to you (good
and bad)
• Usually have shell “root” access
• $20 - $50 / month

39. VPS

40. VPS
• Run the latest version of WordPress

41. VPS
• Run the latest version of WordPress
• WP Super Cache

42. VPS
• Run the latest version of WordPress
• WP Super Cache
• PHP Opcode Cache (APC)

43. VPS
• Run the latest version of WordPress
• WP Super Cache
• PHP Opcode Cache (APC)
• WordPress persistent object cache

44. VPS
• Apache alternatives
• CDN

45. Apache + mod_php
1 request requiring php
• Using mod_php, php
is loaded for every
request even if not
needed
• Most scaling
problems are because
of this

46. VPS

47. VPS
• Apache alternatives

48. VPS
• Apache alternatives
• CDN

49. VPS
• Apache alternatives
• CDN
• W3 Total Cache

50. VPS
• Apache alternatives
• CDN
• W3 Total Cache
• MySQL tweaking ( http://
blog.mysqltuner.com/ )

51. Dedicated Server

52. Dedicated Server
• Full control

53. Dedicated Server
• Full control
• Lots of responsibility

54. Dedicated Server
• Full control
• Lots of responsibility
• Sysadmining required

55. Dedicated Server
• Full control
• Lots of responsibility
• Sysadmining required
• Can be expensive ($100 - $1000 /month)

56. 2 Servers

57. 2 Servers
• Relatively easy to implement

58. 2 Servers
• Relatively easy to implement
• 1 web server, 1 database server

59. 2 Servers
• Relatively easy to implement
• 1 web server, 1 database server
• Web + database on each

60. 2 Servers
• Relatively easy to implement
• 1 web server, 1 database server
• Web + database on each
• Isolated resources

61. 2 Servers
• Relatively easy to implement
• 1 web server, 1 database server
• Web + database on each
• Isolated resources
• Same as single server from an application
perspective but now you have to worry
about network bottlenecks

62. Server Farm

63. Server Farm
• HyperDB

64. Server Farm
• HyperDB
• Object cache with memcached backend

65. Server Farm
• HyperDB
• Object cache with memcached backend
• Can’t use file-based caches anymore

66. Server Farm
• HyperDB
• Object cache with memcached backend
• Can’t use file-based caches anymore
• Nananana...Batcache

67. Server Farm

68. Server Farm
• Load Balancer - nginx

69. Server Farm
• Load Balancer - nginx
• Web Server - nginx

70. Server Farm
• Load Balancer - nginx
• Web Server - nginx
• PHP - php-fpm (now an official PHP
project!)

71. Server Farm
• Load Balancer - nginx
• Web Server - nginx
• PHP - php-fpm (now an official PHP
project!)
• Database - Basic MySQL replication, leave
all the complicated stuff to HyperDB.

72. Server Farm

73. Server Farm
• High availability using spread and
wackamole

74. Server Farm
• High availability using spread and
wackamole
• Scaling from 3 to 300 is relatively easy
compared to scaling from 2 to 3.

75. WordPress.com
• ~ 850 servers in 3 datacenters
• ~ 350 web servers
• ~ 300 database servers
• ~ 60 memcached servers (800GB of RAM)

76. Real World Numbers
• APC
• Empty cache - 33.5 MB RAM
• Primed cache - 6.2 MB RAM
• 60% reduction in CPU utilization
• 210 8-core servers on WordPress.com

77. Scaling Tips

78. Scaling Tips
• Most (all) things you do to scale WordPress
apply to any web app

79. Scaling Tips
• Most (all) things you do to scale WordPress
apply to any web app
• If your bottleneck is the database,
something is wrong

80. Scaling Tips
• Most (all) things you do to scale WordPress
apply to any web app
• If your bottleneck is the database,
something is wrong
• Measure twice, cut once, measure again

81. Scaling Tips
• Most (all) things you do to scale WordPress
apply to any web app
• If your bottleneck is the database,
something is wrong
• Measure twice, cut once, measure again
• Don’t optimize if you don’t need to

82. Questions?