Response and loading times again.

In reply to:

---

This is the result: 07:42:32 up 17 days, 1:16, 8 users, load average: 6.75, 4.04, 3.75

---

Those load figures do look a little high, but not overly so, given that DreamHost use NFS, which I believe tends to inflate the load figures slightly. I have seen the load on my server rise to similar levels with no detrimental effect on the speed of my sites.

I just checked your site again and this time it loaded reasonably quickly, no more than a few seconds for it to come up. Clicking a few menu items also resulted in reasonable response times, so it is possible that the load on your server is not constantly high. It is important for you to check the load levels at the times when your website is at its slowest.

If you see a fairly constant high server load, say above 6 or 7, then I suggest lodging a support request to DreamHost detailing your issue. They may be able to isolate the cause of the high load and remove it.

Mark

I've just sent a mail to the support. It's insane that sometimes it is as fast as I almost cannot believe, but in average it's very slow.
Thank you all for the help.

In reply to:

---

Those load figures do look a little high, but not overly so, given that DreamHost use NFS, which I believe tends to inflate the load figures slightly. I have seen the load on my server rise to similar levels with no detrimental effect on the speed of my sites.

---

Yeah, do you recommend using top instead? I like seeing the actual cpu usage.

I have to say that I also really really like seeing what kind of processing is required to generate each of my site's pages.

I do worry a little about how much extra load top is putting on the machine itself. I suspect that it would be bad if everyone ran it at the same time...

I don't know what your experience has been, but I just loaded your site and it seems to take several seconds to respond. The actual rendering of the page, however, is almost instant. This is the same sort of thing I am seeing with blueskysoccer.com, my site.

Try doing a traceroute (or tracert from Windows) from your local machine to your site (e.g., tracert www.digisample.org). I'm curious what you see. For reference, I am located in Minneapolis, USA and here is what I get (first 4 lines removed because they are local to my company):

  5    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  mplsmn1wce1-gige5-0-0.wcg.net [65.77.114.53]
  6     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  brvwil1wcx2-pos14-2-oc48.wcg.net [64.200.240.137]
  7     8 ms     8 ms    12 ms  64.200.249.186
  8     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  te-4-3.car2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.110.33]
  9     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  ae-1-55.bbr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.129]
 10    70 ms    71 ms    69 ms  ae-0-0.bbr1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [64.159.1.125]
 11    69 ms    69 ms    70 ms  ae-11-51.car1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.68.102.12]
 12   132 ms   326 ms   265 ms  ge1-L3.dreamhost.com [4.78.192.66]
 13    71 ms    72 ms    70 ms  apache2-cid.coke.dreamhost.com [208.97.175.216]

See how it goes out to Chicago, then to LA, then to what I assume is dreamhost's network gateway to Level3.net's backbone, ge1-L3.dreamhost.com? See how the ge1-L3.dreamhost.com response time is much higher than the rest? I'm no networking genius, but it looks to me like that is the bottleneck.

Andy

In reply to:

---

12 132 ms 326 ms 265 ms ge1-L3.dreamhost.com [4.78.192.66]
13 71 ms 72 ms 70 ms apache2-cid.coke.dreamhost.com [208.97.175.216]

---

I don't think you can depend on the pings to ge1-L3.dreamhost.com. The pings to intermediate routers are somewhat undependable in that they can be configured to either not respond or to respond with lower priority.

Also, the ping to your actual host seems to be around 70ms. This seems to me to be a reasonable number.

Now, are you talking about load time or response time? From the time that something appears on your page to the time that it is done loading, that is load time. From the time that you type the domain name into the address bar and press enter to the time that something appears., that is response time. My web pages have a bad response time but a great load time. Load time is also dependent on the connection that you are on. At work I am on a DS3, my load time is .3 seconds for a Joomla! webpage. However, My response time can be anywhere from 5-25 seconds.
I recently emailed them about the load averages on my server (punch) and they said that the numbers were not that bad, and that it is not really a big concern, here is what they wrote "That load average, though a little high, isn't much to worry about in our
4 processor core servers such as yours."
I want the response time to get a lot better too, I just don't know how to go about it with them any more.
If you have a Joomla! site I can tell you how to make it load a lot faster. I found ways to cut my load time down from 3.5 seconds to .3 seconds.

I have the same issue as you guys. Sometimes my Joomla! site loads quickly, sometimes it's 10 seconds, 20 seconds, etc. sometimes it never loads.

The same with my phpGallery. Sometimes it's fairly quick others it's slow, others it hangs until I get a timeout (minutes).

The loading seem to run in the 7-8 range on the server I'm on.

Any hints on making these sites load faster are greatly appreciated!

http://www.tucsoncobras.com

I've noted that I have a large response time if I hit my DH RoR site for the first time for the day (~20 seconds say), but then subsequently to this it seems ok. I'm thinking it might be initial startup of the RUBY/FASTCGI processes but I'm yet to confirm this.

If anyone has any background/knowledge of this Ruby on Rails response time issue on DreamHost I'd be interested? Also if you have any advice how to test/prove where this initial bottleneck is?


Regards

Your logs should be able to tell you. (assuming your app logs too)

Because persistent processes are killed on DH servers, you can pretty much guarantee that it's initial startup time.

Wholly - Use promo code WhollyMindless for full 97$ credit. Let me know if you want something else!

In reply to:

---

So if I write to the support can they make some change?

---

Some of the users get moved to a new server.


T-T-L

In reply to:

---

I have the same issue as you guys. Sometimes my Joomla! site loads quickly, sometimes it's 10 seconds, 20 seconds, etc. sometimes it never loads.

---

As for Joomla does your site's contents change in a high frequent ? If not, you should try to cache your content. You can do this from the backend site by going into Site=>Global Configuration => Cache.

Hope it helps.



T-T-L

I don't think the OP is necessarily looking for replies. The thread is four months old.
Edited by lensman on 07/06/07 07:29 AM (server time).

In reply to:

---

I don't think the OP is necessarily looking for replies. The thread is four months old.

---

Ah.. what a shame of me. Didn't check the date first.

Thank you Lensman for the notice.


T-T-L
$77 off (yearly plan) + 1 Additional Free Domain For Hosting Lifetime. See Detail Here