velospace blog

velospace has grown by leaps and bounds over the past four years. As traffic and content have both grown, so too has the stress on the hosting infrastructure. One of the ways to speed up the site is to tweak and rewrite intensive database queries. Another way is to tune the Apache server configuration.

Beginning Today mod_deflate Is Active, Saving An Average Of 75% Load Times On Non-Rich Content

mod_deflate is an Apache tool that compresses all non-rich (i.e. non-image) content on the server before it is sent to the visitor. Put another way, using mod_deflate the server zips all of the non-image content, sends it over to the user, who then unzips it on their end. The result is a lot less bandwidth being used because it is all packaged into a compressed file. Today I took the plunge and implemented mod_deflate on velospace after following (and modifying) a MediaTemple guide.

The efficiencies gained by implementing this new tool are enormous: for example, the velospace homepage has 26.52 kb of compressable content on it. mod_deflate shrinks that down to 7.43 kb in transit – savings of 71.98% per request! Considering the hundreds of thousands of page views a month, each of which will have similar bandwidth savings, the benefit of running mod_deflate is clear.

Another example is the velospace bicycling forums homepage which clocks in at a heavy 45.84 kb without compression. mod_deflate compresses that down to 5.55 kb now in transit – saving 87.89% of the bandwidth it would have taken yesterday.

The bottom line is that tools like mod_deflate help keep busy websites like velospace up and running in the face of constant traffic. If you have any questions or suggestions about keeping velospace running smoothly feel free to drop me an e-mail.

- Greg