Book description
For as long as there's been a Web, people have been trying to make it faster. The maturation of the Web has meant more users, more data, more bells and whistles, and consequently longer waits on the Web. Improved performance has become one of the most important factors in determining the usability of both the Web in general and of individual sites in particular. Web Performance Tuning is about getting the best performance from the Web. This book isn't just about tuning the web server software; it's also about getting optimal performance from a browser, tuning the hardware (on both the server and browser ends), and maximizing the capacity of the network itself. Web Performance Tuning hits the ground running, giving concrete advice for quick results--the "blunt instruments" for improving crippled performance right away. The book then takes a breath and pulls back to give a conceptual background of the principles of computing performance. The latter half of the book approaches each element of a web transaction--from client to network to server--to examine the weak links in the chain and how to strengthen them. Tips include:
Using simultaneous downloads to locate bottlenecks
Adjusting TCP for better web performance
Reducing the impact of DNS
Upgrading device drivers
Using alternatives to CGI
Locating the web server strategically
Minimizing browser cache lookups
Avoiding symbolic links for web content
Table of contents
-
Web Performance Tuning
- Preface
-
I. Preliminary Considerations
- 1. The Blunt Instruments
-
2. Capacity Planning
- Capacity Planning Is Preemptive Performance Tuning
- Methodology
- Questions to Ask
- How Much Bandwidth Do You Need?
- How Fast a Server Do You Need?
- How Much Memory Do You Need?
- Architecture Scaling Options
- Key Recommendations
- 3. Web Performance Measurement
- 4. Case Studies
-
5. Principles and Patterns
-
Principles of Performance Tuning
- Sometimes You Lose
- To Measure Something Is to Change It
- Reading Is Fundamental
- There Is No Free Lunch
- Returns Diminish
- Performance Fights Portability
- Memory Is Hierarchical
- Caches Depend on Locality of Reference
- I/O Is Slow
- Information Is Relative
- Hardware Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive
- The Goal of Tuning Is Simultaneous Failure
- Better Is Relative
- Bits Are Cost
- Internet Performance Degrades Nonlinearly
- Tuning at the Highest Level Gives the Biggest Gains
- It’s Not What You Know, It’s Whom You Know
- Patterns of Performance Improvement
- Key Recommendations
-
Principles of Performance Tuning
-
II. Tuning in Depth
- 6. Client Software
- 7. Client Operating System
- 8. Client Hardware
- 9. Network Hardware
- 10. Network Protocols
- 11. Server Hardware
- 12. Server Operating System
- 13. Server Software
- 14. Content
-
15. CGI Programs
- CGI Internals and Performance Problems
-
General CGI Tips
- Infinite Loops
- Runaways
- Guarding Against Infinitely Looping CGIs
- Don’t Keep the Customer Waiting
- Push State or Processing into the Browser
- Cookies
- Java
- Preprocess Queries and Cache the Results
- Small Is Beautiful
- Scaling Issues
- Break Up Long Forms into Several Small Forms
- Server DNS Lookup
- Debug and Optimize
- CGI Language-Specific Optimization Tips
- Daemonize It
- CGI Database Access Performance
- Key Recommendations
-
16. Java
- What Java Does for You
- Java Compared to Native Code
- Why It’s Getting Better
-
Performance Tips: What You Can Do
- Get the Best VM for Your Runtime Platform
- Profile Your Code
- Use Threads
- Be Clever with Loops
- Use Final Methods
- Load and Use Fewer Classes
- Use String Buffers or Arrays
- Don’t Manage by Exception
- Keep the Paint Method Small
- Use Sockets Rather Than URLs
- Use Native Methods
- Compile With -O
- Platform-Dependent Compilation
- JITs
- Server-Side Java
- Distributed Object Performance
- Key Recommendations
- 17. Databases
-
III. Appendixes
-
A. Netscape Enterprise Server 3.0 Tuning
- Introduction
- Audience
- What Is perfdump?
- Installing perfdump
- Using perfdump Statistics
- Platform-Specific Issues
- Benchmarking the Netscape Enterprise Server
- B. Apache Performance Notes
- C. Solaris 2.x—Tuning Your TCP/IP Stack and More
-
A. Netscape Enterprise Server 3.0 Tuning
- Index
- Colophon
Product information
- Title: Web Performance Tuning
- Author(s):
- Release date: October 1998
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9781565923799
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