Server Architecture for eZ Publish Hosting
Monday 17 July 2006 2:20:00 am
To get optimal performance from your eZ Publish installation, you need to have the hardware infrastructure that can support your site's level of activity. Different sites and site usage patterns require different hardware configurations. In this article we look at the most common hardware configurations for eZ Publish deployments, ranging from single servers to clustered environments.
Architectural overview
In this article we are going to focus on three different hardware configurations. For each configuration, we estimate the maximum performance you can expect from a similar hardware configuration. These results are only estimates. For accurate performance statistics, you must test your own equipment and eZ Publish installation. If you want to test performance in a clustered environment but do not have one available to you, eZ systems or one of eZ's hosting partners can provide rental access to a testing environment.
Test methods
In testing these configurations, we used a standard out-of-the-box 3.8.1 eZ Publish installation loaded with 100 000 objects. We tested serving an article list from a folder containing 5 000 articles. The results show the last 10 articles sorted by publishing date. Each new request to the server instantiates a new session. (In real-world usage, returning visitors would slightly improve the performance results.)
In our tests, view cache was both enabled and disabled ("dynamic" in the performance diagram). The same tests were also done when we had heavy write load on the system ("view cache load" and "dynamic load" in the performance diagram), inserting articles at the rate of three to five articles published per second. Delayed search indexing was enabled.
Hardware
The servers used in our testing were identical Dell 1U servers with the following configuration:
- Dual Xeon 3.1 Ghz
- 4GB RAM
- 100GB SATA drives
- 2 x 1000Mb network cards
- Internal Gigabit switch in the rack setup
The picture below shows the hardware used for testing installed in a standard 19" rack.
