Performance Optimization

  • Before we dive deep into Varnish, I’d like to get a feel for the various performance improvements anyone can make to speed up their Drupal. What’s the process you think through when optimizing a site?
    • DB Tuning
    • Boost
    • Memcache
    • Redis
    • APC
    • Varnish
    • Module Choices!

Varnish

  • What exactly is Varnish?
  • When researching Drupal performance optimization, I came across a lot of references to APC and Varnish. What is the difference?
  • Is this for anonymous or authenticated traffic?
  • Is the Varnish module required to utilize Varnish with Drupal?
  • What are the steps needed to install and utilize Varnish? (Broad terms, not actual terminal commands)
  • Does SSL affect Varnish?
  • What doesn’t Varnish do? (What needs to be done by Drupal, or other software instead?)
  • How does Varnish affect a dev/staging/live workflow? Does Varnish need to be instlaled on the local machine?