[Catalyst] Catalyst performance under load

[Richard Jolly]

 > From: catalyst-bounces at lists.rawmode.org 
> [mailto:catalyst-bounces at lists.rawmode.org] On Behalf Of Yuval Kogman
> Sent: 09 February 2006 10:38
> To: The elegant MVC web framework
> Subject: Re: [Catalyst] Catalyst performance under load
> 
> On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 10:30:13 -0000, Richard Jolly wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > We've been using Catalyst for a project with much 
> happiness. But now 
> > we have some hostile management questions about performance 
> under load.
> > Basically its considered new, unproven technology good for 
> 'prototyping'
> > but quite probably inappropriate for production.
> > 
> > So I'm asking if there is any existing data for load/stress 
> testing, 
> > or anecdotal accounts of it being used for high 
> availability/high load 
> > sites. I've seen the wiki page listing sites using catalyst [ 
> > http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/ ], but I fear none of these are big 
> > enough to convince management.
> 
> I don't think there are any data sheets out there, but I 
> don't really know.
> 
> Instead I will offer this advice:
> 
> I can almost guarantee that Catalyst will *NOT* be the 
> overhead directly. It is much more likely that fetching the 
> data from the database takes 90% of your time.
> 
> If you benchmark with that apache benchmark utility and the 
> results are not satisfying enough you can try to employ 
> aggressive caching of results at their most reusable level 
> (if an object is used twice in two different pages, cache the 
> object. If it's used in only one page, cache the template output).

The project is still new - we haven't even hooked it up to apache yet,
just using the development server.
 
> Worst case scenario - change your ORM, or switch to plain DBI 
> for a few select queries. This will allow you to do 
> aggressive prefetching and to spend less time transforming 
> and accessibalizing data.

Yep. No argument from me. Currenty DBIC is the ORM. 

> Remember that latency and load are almost orthogonal - most 
> of the delay a low performance webapp might suffer from is 
> not necessarily high load - IO waits account for a lot of 
> time, typically.
> 
> > We have to make a case to an unsympathetic audience - 
> please help us 
> > gather evidence and arguments.
> 
> When in doubt, use mod_perl as an argument: Amazon, Yahoo 
> (?), Etoys - they all use Perl at least to some extent, as do 
> many other "serious" sites.

Its not perl or mod_perl that's under suspcision here - its Catalyst
itself. Stablitiy and performance and considered 'unproven'. I used
Mason for a long time. You could always stop this kind of argument by
saying that Amazon used it. 

Richard 

> --
>  ()  Yuval Kogman <nothingmuch at woobling.org> 0xEBD27418  perl 
> hacker &  /\  kung foo master: /me whallops greyface with a 
> fnord: neeyah!!!!!!!
> 
> 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain
personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically
stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system. 
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in
reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the
BBC monitors e-mails sent or received. 
Further communication will signify your consent to this.