[rt-users] SOT: high performance web cache for RT

[Matthew Seaman]

Joe Casadonte wrote:
> On 3/6/2008 7:37 AM, Matthew Seaman wrote:
>  > Sven Sternberger wrote:
>  >> I found a very interesting software project, which
>  >> boost my RT test instance.
>  >>
>  >> http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/
>  >>
>  >> due to the nature of cache systems it is not working with https
>  >> traffic, but nevertheless It could be helpful for a lot
>  >> of environments. And I will try a combined solution
>  >> with pound and varnish, may this will work.
>  >
>  > We use exactly this with RT.
> 
> Following up on a thread from a couple of weeks ago.  I'm curious as to 
> how something like Varnish can help with what is, essentially, 
> dynamically-generated content?
> 

As other people have said, inverse caches like varnish don't do much
for the dynamic content.  What they make a lot more efficient is serving
up the constant stuff -- CSS, images etc. which frequently take up a much
larger percentage of the HTTP requests involved in serving the site than you
might expect.

One consideration that no-one has highlighted yet is that this enables you
to use memory more efficiently in a loaded server.  An apache process with
mod_perl can get pretty chunky, and (for the typical unix-type mpm_prefork
scenario) there can be dozens of such processes.  Use of the inverse cache
means that the easy work of serving constant data is picked off early by the
much smaller varnish process and that ultimately you need fewer of those big
apaches cluttering up the process table, and that those apaches are dedicated
to doing the important heavy-weight processing.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew Seaman                     The Bunker, Ash Radar Station
PGP: 0x60AE908C on servers            Marshborough Rd
Tel: +44 1304 814890                  Sandwich
Fax: +44 1304 814899                  Kent, CT13 0PL, UK

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