Optimizing Your Website on Rackspace Cloud Sites

Below we have outlined some best practices and suggestions to optimize your website on Cloud Sites:

Using SSL

SSL may be right for you but should be used only when necessary. SSL traffic is encrypted and causes additional server processing time. We encourage you to pass only the traffic that needs to be secure to the SSL servers as the non-SSL clusters are more robust and are better equipped to handle traffic spikes.

To accomplish this, create a sub-domain (e.g. secure.example.com) and enable SSL for the sub-domain only through which secure transactions will be processed. This allows SSL traffic to pass through a separate location and provides customers with a visual cue that they are on a secure site.

Click here for information on setting up a sub-domain. For details on adding SSL to a site visit this knowledge base article.

Serving Static Content

For the best performance we recommend migrating all static media files (images, video, audio, flash, etc.) to the CDN (Content Delivery Network) of your choice. We offer CDN integration with Akamai via our Cloud Files offering, but any CDN will work.

This gives your customers decreased latency when accessing media as the content is cached and served by servers closest to their physical location. For more information about using Cloud Files please visit the Cloud Files Knowledge Base and this getting started video.

Database Optimization

A properly optimized database and database queries can increase the performance of your website. An inefficiently designed database can bring your website to a crawl. Optimizing queries, creating indexes, and setting the most appropriate engine type (if MySQL) where needed can increase the performance of your website when done properly.

Please consult a professional DBA if necessary.

Coding

Efficient code will always yield a better performing website. This is especially true with a busy website. Issues that are not evident during light or normal traffic become noticeable when traffic to the website increases.

Reducing the number of file system operations, external calls, includes, and reducing and/or optimizing database queries will allow your website to perform and scale more efficiently.

If you are expecting an increase in traffic to your website, please create a support ticket for your site with the subject: “Expected High Traffic website_name” 

Please provide us information on the amount of expected traffic and the date you expect the traffic to begin to increase by providing the following details in your ticket:

• Is the site provisioned as an SSL site?
• Target URL(s):
• Source IP address(es) (if known):
• Date/time(s) of event (with Time Zone):
• Duration of event.
• Expected traffic volume (in requests per second, estimate)
• Type of application (proprietary, commercial, open source, etc)
• CMS, if applicable (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc, if applicable)
• If applicable, disable comments/chat and traceback functionality during your event
• Does app/site make any 3rd party calls to domains outside of Cloud Sites (RSS feeds, APIs, curl, etc)?
• Does app/site cache to file system or database?
• Emergency contact info including cell phone number:

Please submit your ticket at least 7 days before the expected high traffic date. 

Please see below for specific optimization articles that may apply to your websites:

How to Optimize SugarCRM

How to Optimize Drupal

How Do I Optimize Gallery 2

WordPress 3.01 + CDN Tools 1.0 Plugin

WordPress 3.01 + W3 Total Cache 0.9.1.3 Plugin