Interdependent Web

Printer-friendly version

session details: Drupal CDN Integration

note: speaker is currently developing a Drupal module and synchronization daemon as his masters thesis.

• page rendering performance is included in page loading performance
• why does it matter? because users care! Google found another 500ms caused 20% fewer searches!
• important to Drupal because it powers big, popular sites and is used by many sites around the world
  
• speeding up Drupal would speed up the Internet itself
• 80%+ of load time is static components -- don't require cookies, etc.
• A CDN is a collection of servers in multiple locations serving static content
  • geographical spread
  • can be populated by pull: virtually no setup, but also no flexibility, redundant traffic
    
  • can be populated by push: more setup, but more flexible, no redundant traffic, lock-in to a particular CDN
• The CDN Effect: YSlow penalizes you two letter grades if it thinks you don't have a CDN, even if there is no performance problem
• Episodes is a Javascript tool to measure page loading sequence -- plug-in for Firebug, Drupal module available next week!
• how to integrate Drupal with a CDN?
  
  • change all calls to base_path() function
  • Simple CDN module offers some limited improvement
  • CDN integration module -- not scalable yet!
  • CDN integration will be improved in coming months with push capabilities
  • daemon must be extensible, robust & scalable
• Future goals
  • transparency (transfer protocol irrelevant)
  • mixing CDNs with static file servers
  • processing before sync: image optimization, transcoding media files
    
  • detect new files instantly!
  • daemon could also be used as a massive back-up tool, transcoding server, tool for creating one's own CDN from shared servers