The document discusses the LAMP stack architecture and its limitations for scaling web applications. It presents the traditional LAMP stack of using Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP together. It then outlines several issues with this approach as applications grow larger, including PHP not closing MySQL connections properly, MySQL becoming blocked, and web servers having poor performance when waiting on MySQL. It suggests moving to a LNNJ stack using Linux, Nginx, NoSQL databases, and JavaScript to create asynchronous, event-driven applications that better leverage the network and browsers.

1. THE LAMP STACK
No muss, no fuss scaling

3. Lamb Shank

4. The Lamp Stack
How to make it rock, and why not to use it at all

5. Thanks for the
internets
• Linus Torvalds
• US Military
• The Porn Industry
• and...

6. LAMP
• Linux
• Apache
• MySql
• PHP

8. Software Engineering
Economics
• Bandwidth is cheaper than
• HDD is cheaper than
• CPU is cheaper than
• Memory is cheaper than
• Development

9. Simple high availability,
high performance
MySql
Apache Master
HAProxy 1
MySql
Apache Slave
Internets
Heartbeat HAProxy
MySql
Apache Slave
HAProxy 2
MySql
Apache Slave

10. Load Balancers
• HAProxy
• Heartbeat
• Elastic IP
• Rackspace Load Balancer
• Amazon Elastic Load Balancing

12. Easy Linux admin
• Run Debian
• Keep it up-to-date
• Run as few packages as possible
• Monitor the hell out of it

13. Apache
• Most expensive - Creating child servers
• RAM, RAM, RAM
• PHP memory size * max processes < RAM

14. MySql
• key_buffer = RAM / 2
• wait_timeout <= 30
• MyISAM vs InnoDB
• Master-Slave vs Master-Master vs Cluster

15. MySql replication
Master Master
Slave
Slave Slave Slave
Slave
Slave

16. Master-Master
Master/Slave
Master/Slave Master/Slave
Master/Slave

17. PHP
• Use a framework
• Use Memcached
• Separate reading and writing (Master /
Slave)
• Watch that memory!

18. More about
memcached
• How it works
• Why is it fast?
• Why is it slow?

19. Frameworks
• CodeIgniter
• CakePHP
• Yii
• Wordpress
• ...

20. Lost my Memory
• Them: Feature Creep
• Us: Lack of imagination

21. # cat /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini | grep memory
; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (128MB)
; http://php.net/memory-limit
memory_limit = 500M

22. LAMP got us this far,
but...

23. Major problems with
this architecture
And if they haven’t fixed it yet, they probably never will

24. • PHP doesn’t close MySql connections
• MySql can get blocked
• Web servers go psycho when waiting on
MySql
• No good replication
• Increasingly complex to scale

25. LNNJ?
• Linux
• Nginx
• NoSql
• Javascript

26. Asynchronous

27. Event-Driven

28. The network is the
computer
John Gage, Sun Microsystems

29. The web is changing
from this

31. To this

33. To this

35. We’re not in Kansas
anymore

36. Enablers
• Ajax
• JSON
• Long polling/ Comet / Websockets
• Javascript
• HTML 5
• Browsers that suck less

37. Form over function
• XML is all about the structure of data
• JSON is all about data

38. Prepare for Zombie
Invasion

40. So how do we do this
thang?

41. Start with an API

42. Keep data JSON

43. Data-only down the
wire

44. Make the user do the
hard work

45. Write more Javascript

46. Relinquish control

47. Jason Norwood-Young
10Layer
jason@10layer.com