[consulting] Does anyone offer Drupal performance tuning services?

[Domenic Santangelo]

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Chris Johnson <cxjohnson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1.  efficiency of the code of the modules being used.

Indeed. Sam, I know your OP wasn't looking for performance tips so
much, but I wanted to add one thing I saw lately on a project: tons of
inefficient code in the theme layer. node_load() everywhere (gets
continually more expensive as # of modules  increase) , db_query()
24/7 and the like... /in the theme layer/. What enabled me to discover
the biggest PHP bottleneck was code profiling. I chopped page load
time by 4/5 (no joke) after taking a couple days to rearchitect the
way the theme layer handled things. Point being -- it's not always
server configuration or even contrib modules that can kill
performance. There are many, many variables. Best case for you would
be if it was something simple but significant, like the VPS being too
small, MySQL not having any indexes for some reason, PHP mem limit of
4 MB ;).......

To play off of what Shai said earlier, I think the nerve you might be
hitting is saying "quite a bit can be accomplished [in a couple of
hours]" many times in the thread without an idea of what that "quite a
bit" is. I can't speak for everyone else, but for me that phrase
invokes memories of bad client experiences -- the ones where the
client never thinks you did enough work no matter how many 12-hour
days you put in. Not that that's what you're saying -- don't hear me
wrong here -- but some specific, measurable goals you want to
accomplish in a defined amount of time would go a long way in both
landing you the right person for the job and also keeping your own
expectations realistic. Saying, as an example, "I want my D6 site on a
VPS to load pages as quickly as The Onion, and I want it done in 2
days for $50/hr" might pare your responses down to people who think
they can do that for you (and would be sure to garner many more
responses as to the attainability of that goal).

Hope this helps,
-D