WebandBlog.COM

Simulating high-traffic for Linode VPS via LoadImpact

Thanks to the opportunity given to me by guys from LoadImpact.COM i recently tested my Linode 512 MB VPS with advanced load levels, simulating well-almost a "slashdot effect". And while my WordPress blog was able to withstand a maximum load of 250 simultaneous users (that's what these guys use as a measure of load simulation) for one of my client's Drupal installation numbers were not really that good. Take a look at graphs with comments after the break.

› Continue reading

Tags: Linode, loadimpact, nginx, php-fpm, vps

Make your LEMP website faster by installing eAccelerator

The other day i had a discussion with someone about how fast Java-powered website are, because the code is compiled and serving a page takes a breeze. The point of discussion was me writing code using php, which is a scripting language and compiles code on-the-fly every time you make a request to the website.

So i decided to take a little experiment involving current LEMP (php-fpm/mySQL Linode VPS host) setup for the client's WordPress blog and add eAccelerator to it.

› Continue reading

Tags: eaccelerator, lemp, Linode, php-fpm

Log only certain file types being downloaded from your website with nginx access_log directive

Say you host a website where you have workshops in PDF and would like to get statistics on how many people download them, but due to the setup of your CMS (in my case Drupal) and links being already on the website it is almost impossible. Luckily, those of you who use Nginx as their web server can configure it to log only certain file types being downloaded.

Here is how

› Continue reading

Tags: access_log, nginx

Intermedia hosting outsources technical support to Russia

It has come as a surprise, when instead of an Indian person a girl with a russian accent answered my call to Intermedia tech support Tuesday morning. When i asked where they based, she said - St. Petersburg, Russia. Since i speak the language we quickly sorted out my problem and i was done, but a thought kept my attention this day. So after all outsourcing battles with selfish indians, lazy philipino and other countries, i won't name here tech companies have considered smart russians to do the job?

A few words about Intermedia hosting and my particular experience - don't buy it. For the shared hosting pricing they ask, you can get yourself a VPS with Linode and rule your own world on it, vs. being stuck with limitations of the shared box platform. In my case client's account had a limitation of MaxxClientsAllowed = 10 on his account. This is pathetic for a shared hosting for a $20 a month. Thus a sudden traffic spike of 6000 visitors from Groupon made the website non-responsive.

Olga from russian tech support team made a favor of upping this limit to a 100, which helped a bit. However after conversation with a client this account is now scheduled for the move to Linode's VPS. As to Intermedia's decision to have support team in Russia - the question about efficiency remains open.

Tags: intermedia, outsourcing, shared hosting

Thoughts about cloud hosting for Grails applications

A few years ago nobody probably heard about "cloud computing" term. Except maybe for engineers building customer access portals, people involved in design of sites like Facebook and Twitter and their alikes. But as more and more people get connected to the internet with high-speed access, traffic figures are going up for everyone no matter what you host - a small online store or a mainstream blog.

I feel sorry for some of my clients, who chose to have their websites hosted on shared hosting with providers known for their infamous overselling - Godaddy, 1and1 and others. As they put about 100-150 accounts on one server with web traffic increasing for one of the clients it negatively reflects for the rest and your website visitors start experiencing slower load and response times. Eventually users simply hit back button in their browser tired of waiting for the website to answer and web page to load. And this is how you lose your customers.

So what should you do to avoid this? What should you do, if you are a developer who designs an application and expects an overwhelming response to it? › Continue reading

Tags: amazon, cloudfoundry, grails, springsource