Web Application Performance: Difference between revisions

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== Introduction ==
Two fundamental limits on performance:
* Amount of data
* Distance (limited by speed of light - fast but not instant)
Other considerations:
* Number of requests - each one involves 1+ round trips (though can re-use connections)
== Cache ==
== Cache ==


Line 27: Line 38:


* Difficult now that everything is HTTPS
* Difficult now that everything is HTTPS
* No longer transparent for ISPs etc.
* Can pay a cache provider

Latest revision as of 15:13, 11 July 2023

Introduction

Two fundamental limits on performance:

  • Amount of data
  • Distance (limited by speed of light - fast but not instant)

Other considerations:

  • Number of requests - each one involves 1+ round trips (though can re-use connections)

Cache

HTTP headers

  • Cache-Control: max-age
  • ETag: Hash of file, don't download if unchanged (but beware of how this is calculated, e.g. Apache may use inodes by default which differ on load-balanced servers)
  • Expires: Re-download after this
  • Last-Modified

Most headers won't help on first visit.

Request headers (conditional GET request):

  • If-Modified-Since: Date/time
  • If-None-Match: Hash (ETag)

Problems:

  • Can't override the browser behaviour - once it's cached with an expiry time

Fingerprinting / hashing

  • Gets around caching, effectively forces a new request by using a unique filename based on file contents
  • Effectively allows you to set long expiry times but still force updates, e.g. 12 months for site logo

Proxies / intermediates

  • Difficult now that everything is HTTPS
  • No longer transparent for ISPs etc.
  • Can pay a cache provider