Website Performance

Understanding the Importance and the

Road to Implementation

About Your Speaker

Mitchel Sellers CEO @ IowaComputerGurus Inc. Microsoft MVP, DNN MVP, ASPInsider Experienced trainer & educator Contact Information:

msellers@iowacomputergurus.com Twitter @mitchelsellers & @IowaCompGurus Office: 515-270-7063

Disclaimer/Disclosure

The tools discussed in this presentation are tools that we have found helpful in our years of performance tuning applications for customers

We are not being compensated for recommending/showing the tools we are discussing today

Without the use of tools, your work will be FAR more involved. Feel free to use your own tools, or favorites. We are always looking for recommendations as well

Watch the webinar recording here:http://www.postsharp.net/blog/post/webinar-recording-website-performance

Agenda

Why do we care about performance? What indicates successful performance? Understanding how webpages work Visualizing complete page load… Quick Fixes & Tools? Diagnosing Issues Applying load? Adopting Change

Why Do We Care About Performance Search Engine Optimization

Google Ranking User Perception

Do I really want to work with this business? Devices

Differing network abilities Throttled vs Free, etc.

Indicators of a Well Performing Site Not an exact science Can articulate a few key metrics

Anything more than 250 ms response triggers warnings from Google Page Speed Tools

User dissatisfaction starts around the 2-3 second mark

Various studies show > 25% increase in abandonment after 6 seconds

Well Performing Site Indicators User experience focused, rather than true

“metrics” focused Think Expedia.com or Kayak.com

Minimal requests needed to render the website

Understanding How Webpages Work Technical or not, understanding the order is key Logical processing

Request/Response for main HTML Request/Response for individual assets, after HTML

processed Request/Response for linked assets within other

assets Limitations

Current web browsers can only request 4-10 items per domain, at a time

Watch the webinar recording here:

http://www.postsharp.net/blog/post/webinar-recording-website-performance

Example Loading: KCCI.com

Example CMS Driven Site (Moderate speed)

Compare & Contrast

Metric KCCI Moderate CMS

High Perf CMS

Total Page Load

8.0 Seconds 2.3 Seconds 1.7 Seconds

Total Page Size

5.43 Mb 1.97 Mb 817 Kb

Total Requests

317 59 26

Google Page Speed

90/100 94/100 95/100

Yahoo! Y! Slow

E (58%) C (70%) A (92%)

Time to First Byte

112 ms 223 ms

Quick Fixes & Tools

GTMetrix.com – Aggregates Google PageSpeed, Yslow and other metrics

Common trouble areas (User Generated Often) Non-compressed image files (Large page load) Non-combined JS Files (Large # of requests) Large Hidden HTML elements Lack of “Static File Caching”

Common areas often result in a 40-80% improvement

Internal Networks need to use other tools

Additional Quick Fixes & Tools Content Delivery Network

Reduces load to your server Serves content more local to the user Can improve throughput by exponential factors

Application Caching Keep DB Queries that are costly

Image Sprites Combine multiple smaller images

Understanding Content Delivery Networks Pull Type CDN

Pro: Requires less changes to your application and can often be implemented quickly

Con: Can often make very “unusual” things happen if just thrown in and left to run

Examples CloudFlare Incapsula

Traditional CDN Pro: Does not impact areas that you don’t expect Con: Requires manual intervention Examples

Amazon S3 / Windows Azure

Diagnosing Issues

Regular monitoring of all application metrics Web & DB Server CPU Web & DB Server Memory Usage Web Request Throughput Web Transaction Times SQL Activity Google Analytics

NewRelic, CopperEgg, Application Insights, etc.

Applying Load

Static Examples are great, but don’t take into consideration heavy load, or caching

Load application needs to meet key requirements Simulate real traffic Behave similar to actual users Be realistic for the expected loads

Hardware environments need to be similar Expected Behavior

Load should be handled in a stable manner. As requests go up, throughput should go up, bandwidth should go up

LoadTesting Tools

LoadStorm.com Ensure that it matches what your browser does Validate that you know how they “simulate” users

Metrics in Load Based Scenarios Possible targets or minimums

RPS (Requests Per Second) Concurrent users Average Server Response % failed request Queue length

Real goal is dependent on your environment

BudgetChallenge Use Case Example BudgetChallenge.com was going to be featured on the Today

show, as well as other national outlets. Additionally formed a partnership with HR Block and needed to guarantee performance with up to 75,000 concurrent users.

Hardware Situation: 6 Virtual Web Servers (18 Gb Ram each) 1 SQL Server Cluster (64 Gb RAM and 32 cores)

Starting Performance: Initial load test resulted in substantial performance failure at

~600-700 concurrent users Ending Performance:

Successful Test with 73,259 concurrent users before network device failure

Total Time: 2 weeks

Load Test Trends

Two examples: Before and After Optimization. (Before is 100 users, after is 75,000 users, same hardware)

Adopting Change in Performance Proactive is Best

Start with a metric, and validate it ALL the way through development

Adjust as needs change Reactive is most common

Must strongly ensure that jumping to conclusions is not done. Very easy to skip a key metric

ONLY change 1 thing at a time and re-validate as you move on

Watch the webinar recording here:

http://www.postsharp.net/blog/post/webinar-recording-website-performance

Questions?