PRADO performance tuning for high-traffic web applications

Based on 2 years' experience with PRADO v.3.x at

Note: Tips are marked with stars ( * ), where 5 stars are the most important tweaks.

I. Basic settings

http://www.pradosoft.com/demos/quickstart/?page=Advanced.Performance

a) Application.Mode = "Performance" *

Time of control's templates modification isn't checked (can be set in application.xml)

b) pradolite.php * *

Less include() function usage (just change include("framework/prado.php") to include("framework/pradolite.php”).

c) Set cache class *** * * * ***

Don't generate all the data on every request. PRADO can save parsed templates, configurations etc. in cache. (can be enabled in application.xml)

d) eAccelerator *** * * ***

Now, server parses scripts once, so PHP compiler has less work to do (see: http://eaccelerator.net)

II. Advenced settings

a) TOutputCache * *

Not all parts of HTML code on your page need to change every request. Use this to cache content of the selected controls.

b) Memory cache * *

Why not store all PRADO templates and configurations directly in the memory? (read: Templates in memory - quick guide)

c) Generating HTML on your own *** * ***

If you have looong list of items, don't use TRepeater or TDataGrid. They are easy to use, but they cost some performance and higher memory usage. (Generate HTML code in your .php file - using foreach() function by example, and then set output to TLiteral).

d) Keep pagestate in your database *** * * ***

PRADO pagestate can be really big – it’s about 10kb-100kb of data. And by default, you send this data on every AJAX request! (just use TDatabasePageStatePersister class)

e) Sometimes it's better to set PostState of ActiveControl to false *

If you have a control like TAutoSuggest, by setting this option, you prevent PRADO from gathering all fields on a form values, on every AJAX request. ( ActiveControl.ClientSide.PostState="false" )

III. Other tips

a) Optimize your code by using TBrowserLog

By adding this line to application.xml

You can track performance on some of your functions directly in browser.

b) Enable gZip compression in your server

Lower bandwidth usage, faster page load for users.

c) Enable query_cache if your are using MySQL

Read: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/query-cache.html

d) Performance for end user

Remember, that server' performance isn't most important. Your visitors must feel, that the site is loading fast. Read: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html .