high-traffic-site-optimization

Tools, techniques, principles, patterns and designs to have a high-performance Linux server.

Two main approaches to apply optimization

Here are two ways to try to optimize a website; we have top-down and bottom-up. in top-down approach people debate about which programming language is faster. They say WordPress is slow and ReactJS is faster; which is true.
Python is faster and NodeJS, yes true.
So the point is, for having a really fast website, just a faster programming language cannot help so much. For any website to function (be loaded) we have there four levels (layers):

1. code level (php, go, python, etc)
2. service level (Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed, etc)
3. architecture level (HA, LB, etc)
4. infrastructure level (network, dedicated server, VM, containers, etc)

We tested and realized that the same code, but in different DataCenter has different speed. Just changing the DataCenter. So when we can apply optimization from top to bottom (which works) we can apply it from bottom-to-up which is more effective.

We are going to cover there four layers and provide solutions for each laster and improve overall performance of the website we have.

NOTE
SVGs are used to better demonstration.

Top-Down (ineffective)

Bottom-Up (effective)

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Infrastructure

Check / test your infrastructure

dmidecode

dmidecode - DMI table decoder
dmidecode is a tool for dumping a computer's DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format.

Usage dmidecode --type | -t
options

bios
system
baseboard
chassis
processor
memory
cache
connector
slot

There of the are more useful

sudo dmidecode --type system
sudo dmidecode --type processor
sudo dmidecode --type memory

Test on a dedicated #server (sudo dmidecode --type system)

System Information
Manufacturer: HP
Product Name: ProLiant DL360 G7
Version: Not Specified
Serial Number: ...
...
Family: ProLiant

Test on a Virtual Server in Hetzner (sudo dmidecode --type system)

System Information
Manufacturer: Hetzner
Product Name: vServer
Version: ...
Serial Number: ...
...
Family: Hetzner_vServer

lshw

lshw - list hardware

First see all available options, sample output:

>>> sudo lshw |& grep '\*-[a-z]\+'
  *-core
     *-cache:0
     *-cache:1
     *-cache:2
     *-cache:3
     *-cpu
     *-memory
        *-bank:0
        *-bank:1
        *-bank:2
        *-bank:3
     *-firmware
     *-pci
        *-display
        *-usb
           *-usbhost:0
              *-usb:0
              *-usb:1
           *-usbhost:1
        *-generic
        *-communication:0
        *-communication:1
        *-storage
        *-isa
        *-memory UNCLAIMED
        *-multimedia
        *-serial UNCLAIMED
        *-network
     *-scsi:0
        *-disk
           *-volume:0
           *-volume:1
           *-volume:2
              *-logicalvolume
           *-volume:3
     *-scsi:1
        *-cdrom
  *-power UNCLAIMED

Four useful ones are cpu, memory, disk, network which we can see using -class arguments

sudo lshw -class cpu
sudo lshw -class memory
sudo lshw -class network
sudo lshw -class disk

here we are more interested in network and disk, first for network find how many interfaced we have:

>>> ip -br a
lo               UNKNOWN        127.0.0.1/8 ::1/128 
enp3s0f0         UP             <ip4>/24 <ip6>/64 
enp3s0f1         DOWN           
enp4s0f0         DOWN           
enp4s0f1         DOWN 

then check that one which is up.

>>> lshw -sanitize -class network
  *-network:0               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: enp3s0f0     # the interface name which is UP
       version: 20
       serial: [REMOVED]
       size: 1Gbit/s              # this is what we looked for
       capacity: 1Gbit/s          # this is what we looked for
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       ...
       ...
  *-network:1
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries
       ...
       ...

here -sanitize is for removing sensitive information like serial numbers, etc.