[consulting] Does anyone offer Drupal performance tuning services?

Mon Apr 27 14:54:21 UTC 2009

I nominate Shai as group diplomat. Well put, Shai!
--
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech, LLC
http://zivtech.com
alex at zivtech.com
office: (267) 940-7737
cell: (215) 866-8956
skype: zivtech
aim: zivtech

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Shai Gluskin <shai at content2zero.com>wrote:

> Sam and all,
>
> I think what is at the core of the emerging hostility in this conversation
> is the idea of a fixed price. If we remove the requirement for a fixed price
> then it's simply a matter of the market determining who Sam can get for the
> lowest price to do the best work. The consultants in this field will have
> their own requirements in terms of hourly rate, terms of engagement, etc.
>
> I think asking a consultant in this area to predict how much utility can be
> gotten from x amount of hours on y server in advance of even taking a peek
> is the part of Sam's request that is irksome.
>
> As some posters have suggested, it may be possible to make a difference in
> a few hours. But predicting that in advance? I'd be quite suspicious of a
> consultant that would do that.
>
> Sam, are you indeed asking of a consultant to essentially guarantee "x"
> amount of utility in advance of taking the job? If you remove that from you
> spec (or maybe you didn't even intend that), I think folks are close to
> being on the same page.
>
> Shai
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Incidentally, I'm very curious why you assume that going through all of
>>> your server logs, analyzing your queries, going through "lots of modules"
>>> and cleaning up any messes found would take a few hours?
>>
>>
>>
>> I never said the few hours would include "cleaning up any messes."  I said
>> they can make a few suggestions.  For example,  coming back with some
>> recommendations, such as saying  xyz module is causing a lot of the problems
>> and you may want to take the following steps.
>>
>>
>>
>>> It reminds me of all the people who ask us for help on a site or with a
>>> problem that tell us "it's really an easy site/fix", to which I always want
>>> to say: "fine, if it's so easy, do it yourself." Really, if it was so easy
>>> (I promise you it is not), would you be spending your time looking for an
>>> expert?
>>>
>>
>> Thanks Alex.  It's always nice to know that I remind you of the type of
>> person you consider yourself far superior to.
>>
>> I never said I thought it was easy, which is why I want to hire an
>> expert.  Your point of disagreement seems to be that you don't think
>> anything of value can be accomplished in a few hours.  It seems to be that
>> quite a bit can be accomplished.  No, it won't be as much as a weeks worth
>> of improvements, but at the very least the server can be tweaked and
>> optimized to best handle a Drupal site.
>>
>> Sam
>>
>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
>>> ZivTech, LLC
>>> http://zivtech.com
>>> alex at zivtech.com
>>> office: (267) 940-7737
>>> cell: (215) 866-8956
>>> skype: zivtech
>>> aim: zivtech
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg <
>>>> Alex at zivtech.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Like Greg said, if you can find someone willing to do this for a flat
>>>>> fee, then I'd love to hear more about it. As far as I can tell, there are
>>>>> far too many variables to make it possible to estimate accurately up front.
>>>>> If I were trying to figure out a fixed price I'd personally try to think
>>>>> about what the highest possible price could be, and then charge that price.
>>>>> Otherwise, you are asking the consultant to take a considerable financial
>>>>> risk.
>>>>>
>>>>> As Khalid mentioned, many shops that handle scaling will offer you more
>>>>> of a fixed price if they control the servers, which seems reasonable.
>>>>>
>>>>> I, for one, think that you are seriously undervaluing server and
>>>>> general LAMP stack support, but maybe I'm not understanding what you are
>>>>> looking for. What do you mean by, for example, "Load Balancing"? That makes
>>>>> it seem to me that you are talking about scaling a site that requires more
>>>>> than one server, but given the budgets you seem to be working with, that
>>>>> doesn't seem like a good assumption (someone who requires more than one
>>>>> server should be able to afford to pay market rates to get it done
>>>>> correctly).
>>>>>
>>>>> So, my question is: what exactly are the problems that you are facing
>>>>> that require a server/scaling specialist?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The scenario here is a D6 site on a VPS with a lot of modules that is
>>>> quite sluggish.  What I'd hope someone can accomplish in a  couple of hours
>>>> would be to analyze all server and software configs to see if anything can
>>>> be installed or tweaked to improve performance.  This might include MySQL,
>>>> PHP, Apache settings -- or even if there's any unecessary software on the
>>>> VPS than can be disabled or tweaked. And installing anything that might
>>>> help.  There's a lot of information out there on ways to do this yourself,
>>>> but I'd rather hire someone who knows what they are doing to take care of
>>>> it.  I'd also like them, if it's possible, to be able to test the VPS to
>>>> make sure that it's performing as well as it should be.
>>>>
>>>> As for the site, I imagine that this person can use devel module to
>>>> analyze the query queue and perhaps make some suggestions -- maybe there's a
>>>> poorly written module that's eating up a lot of resources.  Maybe there's a
>>>> caching module I overlooked.  Maybe there's alternate approaches to getting
>>>> the job done that wouldn't use as many resources.
>>>>
>>>> It seems to me someone should be able to accomplish a lot in these two
>>>> areas in a few hours -- and it would be a great service I'd love to be able
>>>> to offer to my clients.
>>>>
>>>> (As for load balancing, my thinking there was with regard to a managed
>>>> dedicated server I run that has about 30 drupal sites. My thinking was that
>>>> such a person might know ways to install software that would allow me to
>>>> balance the load so that one site wouldn't be using up more resources -- or
>>>> at least help me analyze what resources each site is using.)
>>>>
>>>> Maybe I'm wrong, but it does seem like for a fixed rate for a few hours
>>>> someone who knows what they are doing should be able to accomplish a lot and
>>>> make recommendations for going forward.  It would also be nice to have such
>>>> a person available as a site grows and if it needs to scale.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Sam
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
>>>>> ZivTech, LLC
>>>>> http://zivtech.com
>>>>> alex at zivtech.com
>>>>> office: (267) 940-7737
>>>>> cell: (215) 866-8956
>>>>> skype: zivtech
>>>>> aim: zivtech
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks Greg,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I understand there are a lot of firms offering this service, but what
>>>>>> I'm really hoping for is someone who had a deep understanding of server and
>>>>>> performance issues and can spend a couple of hours analyzing a site and
>>>>>> making adjustments.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm not looking for a large shop that will charge thousands of dollars
>>>>>> for this service, but a consultant who has expertise in this area and would
>>>>>> charge fair market value for a few hours of their time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By flat rate, I mean a willingness to give a price upfront based on
>>>>>> the site specs and hosting situation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems that someone with this expertise,
>>>>>> might be charging somewhere in $50 to $100 an hour range, and in just a
>>>>>> couple of hours they should be able to accomplish quite a lot for a site.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This would be a really valuable service for those of us in the biz who
>>>>>> might be very knowledgeable in other areas but don't know much about
>>>>>> servers, bottlenecks, load balance, etc -- and don't really want to learn
>>>>>> either.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Sam
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Greg Knaddison <
>>>>>> Greg at growingventuresolutions.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We hit this topic less than a month ago -
>>>>>>> http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/2009-March/003088.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And read the followups as well.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also, charging for performance tuning as a flat rate is pretty
>>>>>>> interesting.  If you find anyone who takes that arrangement please
>>>>>>> write back to the list about the experience.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Greg
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> > Does anyone out there offer a Drupal performance site and server
>>>>>>> tuning
>>>>>>> > service -- for a flat rate?
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Ideally this would include analyzing a site, making changes to the
>>>>>>> site and
>>>>>>> > server as needed in order to improve performance.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I think this service would probably be useful to a lot of us, but I
>>>>>>> > understand there's that concern about sharing rates over an email
>>>>>>> list, so
>>>>>>> > please email me privately with what you would include and what you
>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>> > charge for such a service.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Greg Knaddison
>>>>>>> http://knaddison.com | 303-800-5623 |
>>>>>>> http://growingventuresolutions.com
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> consulting mailing list
>>>>>>> consulting at drupal.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
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