[Zope] Caching/http-acceleration and proxying Zope-served content

Peter Sabaini sabaini@niil.at
Tue, 9 Jan 2001 17:44:16 +0100 (CET)


On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Toby Dickenson wrote:

:On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 09:31:35 +0100 (CET), Peter Sabaini
:<sabaini@niil.at> wrote:
:
:>actually i use a combination of squid / apache because i need some
:>re-writing, you could as well use squid for caching and apache for
:>(name-based) virtual hosting. this of course introduces additional
:>latency, but this shouldnt be a problem if your objects are fairly
:>cacheable, ie. most content would be served out of squid anyway.
:
:That's an interesting configuration. For a while Ive been considering
:a solution based on longer-than-usual chains of http proxies, and a
:"do one thing well" principal. In my case:
:
:Apache (for rewriting and SSL)
:  -> Squid accelerator
:       -> A custom load-balancing redirector
:            -> Multiple Zopes
:
:Have you had any significant latency, or other problems?
:
:Toby Dickenson
:tdickenson@geminidataloggers.com

my configuration was:

  --> squid --> apache w/ rewriting and logging --> zserver / zope

there was of course some latency added but nothing significant -- <
0.5s afai can remember. and, since squid was the first stage, most
content would be served of squid (and thus with no added latency)
anyway. ssl was not an issue.

the problem i had with zserver-only was that the most-requested pages
(frontpage and index pages) were also the most expensive to render
(drawing in content from diverse categories etc.) with the proxy
setup, the most-requested pages would be in the cache, and
little-requested pages (article views) are a) simple to render and
therefore dont contribute much to load and latency and b) there's more
willingness for users to wait half a second longer for a detailed view
than for an index page, where they decide if they want to read
anything at all (imho).

i needed apache for logging and also served all static images via
apache -- all those small gifs can have quite an impact of subjective
load times. and since these dont change often you dont need
manageability via zope. you just have to write <img
src="&dtml-spacer_gif_path;"> instead of <dtml-var spacer_gif> (or
whatever)...

ru,
peter.



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peter sabaini, mailto: sabaini@niil.at
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