Optimal Hosting Infrastructure for EE

Hi,

I noticed that EllisLab promotes Nexcess Hosting. They have shared and dedicated hosting plans– LAMP stack and hardware specifications are described at: http://www.nexcess.net/expressionengine-dedicated-hosting . You may consider reaching out to them for hosting services or a discussion regarding your performance requirements.

Of course, after you have optimized EE settings most performance tuning efforts should be focused on optimizing your LAMP stack e.g., implementing caching at web server, PHP and MySQL. If you review the Nexcess features you can see that they are using Varnish and APC. You could go the Zend Server route if you prefer too. Other LAMP tunning considerations such as PHP memory, database connections, query cache will be specific to your content. Benchmarking you application will help you determine where your bottlenecks are and which configuration settings should be changed.

I would recommend considering NGinx web server vs. Apache. NGinx is a high performing proxy/web server. I’m not saying that Apache cannot be configured for high performance but IMHO– out-of-the-box Apache is to NGinx like Microsoft Word is to Notepad.

Hope this points you in the right direction. Good luck!

Mike

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I know Nexcess Hosting and Engine Hosting, but our IT department requires that we host internally. I don’t think Nexcess going to help us out with the best practices of hosting EE.

I have read a few articles about NGinx, and agree with you about the speed advantages. But how does EE run on it? Are there any Apache specific features I’ll miss with NGinx.

Being a Web Developer rather than a System Admin, I just wish I had all the web server related issue behind me, so I could concentrate on developing the web sites in EE.

Hi,

Each web technology described at Nexcess is valuable in that they have identified their “web stack as well as their hardware specification. Learning to configure and optimize a web stack is a valuable and essential experience that directly impacts your web development. As frustrating as it might be…persevere– you will not regret the invested time and effort. Your application (literally) depends upon it. All Sr. Software Engineers are also are fairly good System Administrators. 😉

Regarding, NGinx in your a web stack (excluding PHP extensions or related software e.g., Varnish). Here is the typical difference.

• Apache (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) executes your PHP application via mod_php which is an Apache module.
• NGinx (Linux NGinx MySQL PHP-FPM) executes your PHP application via PHP-FPM which is FastCGI for PHP (usually over TCP sockets– and not embedded in a web server like Apache).

In other words, you have a FastCGI PHP service that is independent of your NGinx (web server) service. It is considered by its community as a lean and scalable web stack. Migrating to NGinx will require that you learn how to configure using their syntax which I found more intuitive.

In general, there are many tutorials on the Internet on building a high available and performing web stack. Here is one that you might find useful.

http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2012/sessions/running-high-performance-lamp-stack-20-virtual-server

Another suggestion would be to employ talent from a Freelance web site. You will find inexpensive talent if you review comments from previous clients and verify there qualifications before you employ their services. Checkout http://www.freelancer.com/ !

Good luck on your web development endeavors!

Mike 😊