Expression Engine, load, and Apache

PHP
1

Hello,

I am consulting for a site that uses Expression Engine as its content management suite and Apache/LiteSpeed + Varnish with an SQL database.

We are being told that the server is over-capacity (mainly CPU), and that a big part of the problem is that Expression Engine does not play well with Apache.

I am sorry I can’t be more specific, but does that sound right? Is that the reputation that Expression Engine has? Compared to WordPress for example, is it really a huge resource hog?

If true, can anything be easily done to improve the situation?

Thanks in advance.

2

Hard to say without knowing more about your server and traffic load, but doesn’t sound right to me. Never heard of particular issues with EE/apache. Extremely rare for apache to max out cpu before mysql does, with varnish on the frontend acting as cache it should be serving most requests without any connection to apache - I’d check it’s configured correctly and that you’re getting a good cache hit rate.

3

I agree with EastCoast, the DB will run out of available connections/ max cpu usage before PHP/ Apache do. Perhaps you’re simply having a lot of traffic on a server that is no longer up to the task of handling all the traffic (even with Varnish in place)?

Maybe it’s time to throw some extra hardware at it :slight_smile:

4

Just be aware, that throwing more hardware at the problem MAY not be the entire solution… in the case of a forum I’m involved with, Jelsoft’s answer was to throw more hardware at it, that was 2 years ago - we’re still running on the same, single server when they claimed we’d need 4 to run the setup.

Is it possible there are some queries in the code that could be optimised to improve the sites performance?

5

Or try an op-code cache like APC, that might help a lot.

Edit>>
Yeah, throwing extra hardware at it isn’t always the best solution. I should have stated that a little more clearly in my original answer :slight_smile:

6

Unfortunately I have the same problem in a number of the hosting companies. CPU of expression engine and RAM usage is extreme. What I am looking now is to find somebody who can help me change the platform and move in Word Press.

7

Did you solve this problem. It is second year that I have the same one, with extreme spending of the resources due to extremely high CPU and RAm in myw web site that is designed in expression engine

I will appreaciate if you find time to anser

thank you

8

That shouldn’t be happening. Have you tried any steps like these?

http://expressionengine.com/wiki/Optimize_EE