[imp] Re: [horde] IMP & PHP Speed Improvements

[Ryan Gallagher]

Quoting Jon Parise <jon@horde.org>:

> On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 09:31:19PM -0400, Luis Hernandez wrote:
> 
> > We are using IMP at our institution under Solaris 8 and Apache 1.3.9. What
> can
> > be done to improve the speed of PHP and IMP? We are not experiencing any
> > problems in speed right now, but since IMP is written in PHP (interpreted
> > language), we do notice the difference in speed than with a simple HTML web
> page.

Zend may be an option.  But there are usually some more straight-forward
improvements that can be made first.  Also, for reference, you are almost NEVER
going to match the speed of pure HTML static pages.  This is what you want to be
serving, say... if Slashdot links to you. ;)

> There are a number of things that can be investigated.  You'll
> probably find a lot of good material by searching around the mailing
> list archives.
> 
> For example, you may find your bottlenecks in the session handling
> system or in database performance for user preferances.  IMAP may also
> be slow.

If you use any modules that rely on the "Categories" code, I have heard that is
a huge performance hit.  The number of IMAP connections needed when performing
tasks such as scanning all folders for new mail is also a HUGE issue.  We
upgraded some hardware on both the authentication machine, and primary mail
server and this alleviated much frustration, however I believe 'imapproxy' is
supposed to address some of these issues by implementing a persistent imap
connection via a compiled deamon. (although haven't tried it yet).

If your userbase is HUGE (like a university) you may want to seek specific
advice from other institutions that use HORDE/IMP in this situation.  I believe
a couple of separate departments at Univ. of Texas at Austin rolled their own
implementations.  They also have a campus wide implementation but it appears to
be fairly customized and not quite "out of box".

If you use SSL i believe it cancels your ability to use compressed HTTP
responses (which are always nice if the bottleneck is client side, such as
dial-up users).

> > Does anyone have input on whether Zend Accelerator would improve
> performance?
> 
> I've never actually used it, but if you want to play with the idea of
> using a PHP cache or accelerator, there are a number of free open
> source implementations available.
>  
> > Luis O. Hernandez, Webmaster
> > Ringling School of Art and Design
> 
> I met a few Ringling students when I was working at Electronic Arts
> this past summer.  It sounds like a neat school. =)
> 
> -- 
> Jon Parise (jon@horde.org) :: The Horde Project (http://horde.org/)
> 
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> 
> 


-- 
Ryan T. Gallagher
ryan@studiesabroad.com
International Studies Abroad
http://www.studiesabroad.com
(512)480-8522