Drupal Backend Performance and Scalability

Sites can be victims to their own success when increased popularity causes it to be slow, or unable to handle more page views.

Sites can also be victims when users are not careful with what is going on behind the scenes after users log in.

Based on the presentation from last year and amount of available material, I am splitting the sessions on Drupal Performance and Scalability into 2 separate sessions and we will cover, over the course of one hour, strategies, tips, and tricks to boost the back end performance of your site (we will be touching on server, fine-tuning Apache, PHP, MySQL, optimizing PHP code, what to avoid).

Here are some things that we will touch on and discuss:

What are the symptoms to look for?
What are the areas you investigate for problems?
What tools are available to help you diagnose issues?
What are some hints and tips for making your site faster?
What has the Drupal community come up with to tackle these issues?

What does Drupal 7 offer?

While I will come prepared with slides on tips and tricks I have learned over my years of experience, I know many of you are experts as well :) So this will be a Bird of a Feather (BOF) format, so everyone can share their experiences. Come prepared with hints/tips and findings (and most of all, enthusiasm!), as well as questions.