[Catalyst-dev] Catalyst Performance Testing

[Jason Wieland]

Matt S Trout wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 05:50:02PM -0700, Jason Wieland wrote:
>   =

>> Baseline:  Just using the webserver (apache or nginx) to download a =

>> static file
>> Static Catalyst: Running the same query but going through Catalyst to =

>> retrieve the same static file (using Static::Simple)
>> Noop Catalyst: Processing a request on a empty controller
>>     =

>
> So, you've benchmarked Hello World. Why do you care?
>
> I've worked on a lot of large scale Catalyst applications, and done a
> fair amount of optimisation work, and I have *never* found Catalyst to
> be the bottleneck in my performance testing. Better still, because
> the teams had used Catalyst they had more time at the end of the
> project for performance testing and optimisation and it was easier
> to clean up the code because the architecture of the application was
> flexible. That really, massively beats caring about how fast Hello
> World is :)
>   =

I completely agree,  one of my most recent projects was creating =

http://notify.me pure Catalyst we get 10k+ hits a day, rapid =

development, no issues, its a joy.  Catalyst is wonderful technology for =

all the reasons above and previous emails, hats off to the developers. =


However I'm working on a different project for an ISP (ondemand =

anti-phishing protection) which requires us to handle a peak of 10,000 =

reqs/second and response that takes no less then 250milliseconds.  We =

have an backend engine that can do that all what we need to put in front =

is a restful web layer.  Because of the beauti of Catalyst got this =

working in a day or two.  However to scaling is not going to work in the =

current state. =


I'm not using any of Catalyst plugins, just the vanilla Catalyst and its =

MVC framework.  I don't know if it would be better to hack through =

Catalyst and remove the parts I don't need for this project.  Or write =

another very simple webframework re-create the parts of Catalyst I do use. =


> I'd point out that BBC iPlayer is built on Catalyst and DBIx::Class
> - are you going to tell me you're going to need to scale further than
> they do? :)
>
>   =

>> Also completely unrelated. I could not get Catalyst working on the =

>> mpm_worker_module.  Is Catalyst not thread safe?
>>     =

>
> Catalyst is threadsafe. Your DBD:: may not be, or something else you
> load. But FastCGI is a much better production environment than mod_perl
> anyway.
>   =

Not using a DBD::  Just try out the base Catalyst example, created when =

you start a new project. =


I do agree fastcgi is a better production environment though.  Just did =

the modperl stuff for comparisons and also there are some old timers in =

the office that are determined to think modperl has to be faster then =

fcgi.  Not withstanding the benefits of a two tiered response layer.

Thanks for everyone's time and responses.

Jason Wieland
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