On 12-Jan-06, at 6:22 AM, Allie Micka wrote:
On Jan 10, 2006, at 11:57 AM, Boris Mann wrote:
Mike I am interested in seeing how Drupal could deliver static pages through a cache mechanism like http://www.squid-cache.org/.
AKA reverse proxy. This is well understood technology with regards to dynamic apps. Most of the configuration is done at the Squid level, which understands the appropriate Apache headers looking at when/if content has changes.
It's well worth roping squid into the discussion. Well-funded sites with heavy load may have the resources to implement this, and it's very effective for load-management overall: Squid's cached pages are in memory/disk, and apache/php is never invoked when an object is intercepted by the reverse proxy. You take the load off of the apache server so it can focus on the rest of the dynamic tasks. This lets you tune apache better, turning KeepAlive off, etc.
I didn't mean to suggest that Squid isn't a good option for "doubleplusgood caching", just that it happens at a different layer and isn't part of a Drupal discussion, although it *is* part of a scalability discussion. As you say, make it easier for Drupal to be cached, and Squid will do good things for you. -- Boris Mann Vancouver 778-896-2747 San Francisco 415-367-3595 SKYPE borismann http://www.bryght.com