DNN Performance & Scalability Planning, Evaluating & Improving : Part 1

About Mitchel  Mitchel Sellers  Microsoft C# MVP & DNN MVP  CEO/Director of IowaComputerGurus, Inc.  Contact Info:  Blog:   Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Agenda  What is Performance/Scalability?  Why such a concern?  Performance & Default DNN != Success  Hosting Provider & Performance  The Easy Stuff  Setup DNN  Evoq  Pick Third-Party  Managing Content  Static File Caching  Client Resource Management Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Survey Time!  5.x Users?  6.x Users?  7.x Users?  7.4.x > Users?  Evoq Users? Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

What is Performance/Scalability  Performance can be a number of things  Average Response Time  Number of requests per day  Number of concurrent users  Scalability  The ability for an application to grow, as needed  Linear scalability is the best, as it is predictable Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Why Concerned  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  Google ranks site based on raw performance  Google ranks based on mobile friendly  Mobile friendly is tangentally related to performance. (Image size, compression, etc)  User Experience  Industry experts say > 2 seconds and you will lose customers  Slow sites do not install confidence in users, especially for eCommerce  Business Growth  Related to user experience, but slightly tangential  Need to ensure stability of your business long-term Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Performance & Default DNN  Out of the Box DNN  Prior to 7.x:  Requires lots of changes  Post 7.x:  Requires less changes, but needs to be optimized  Different 7.x versions have different levels of default performance  Is DNN Slow?  No, it isn’t slow. It just needs to be configured Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Hosting Provider Selection & Performance  Key deciding factor in performance is the hosting environment  DNN does NOT need huge resources, just stable ones  Shared Hosting == Instant Non-Scalable  Reliability is limited  Potential for hosting company to throttle you is very high  Ideal environments (Depending on needs)  Windows Azure Websites & SQL (Works well, and cheap)  Dedicated Single Server  Must be properly configured with SQL Memory Limits  BEST: Web Server & Database Server Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

The Easy Part: DNN Setup  Host -> Host Settings  Disable “Display Copyright Credits”  Cache Provider “Memory” (If Possible)  Caching Setting “Heavy”  Enable “Event Log Buffer”  If not loading files via FTP  Disable “Auto-Sync File System”  NEVER EVER EVER EVER use the Site Log functionality  Host -> Scheduler  Avoid high-frequency intervals  Watch the search engine scheduler, some installs will re-index every minute, bad idea Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Special Setup for Evoq Customers Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

The Easy Part: Picking Third-Party  Most common failure point of all DNN Scalability is third-party, both skins and modules  Be wary of utility skins & modules  Things that can do “all things” are typically a double-edged sword  Ask questions of the vendor  What types of load testing do you do?  Do you validate proper management of database connections?  Do you support module caching?  Validate the module yourself  If high-throughput site, setup a scenario to isolate & test.  More on this later today! Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

The Easy Part: Managing Content  Biggest hidden culprit  Proper Sized Items  Harder with responsive  But still important  Compression & File Types  CompressPNG.com & Related Sites  Same quality, not requiring DNN intervention  User education Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

The Easy Part: Static File Caching  DNN 7.3.2? And later have this by default  node needs this added   Can easily reduce server impact by 80-90% or more Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

The Easy Part: Client Resource Management  DNN and LATER  Awesome benefits to the page size and other attributes  But has drawbacks and can fail  Only test on a test environment or non-production site. After enabling test ALL functions of the site.  Best settings are to turn on all options in “Host” -> “Host Settings” including minification of JS & CSS Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.

Where to Next?  Basics are completed  Now, to start the analysis part and load testing Copyright 2015 Mitchel Sellers/IowaComputerGurus, Inc.