Pro PHP Application Performance will help you understand all the technologies and components which play a role in how well your applications run. When seconds can mean the difference between retaining a user and losing a user, it's important for all of us to have optimization as part of our project roadmap. But what components within your application should you analyze? How should you optimize? And how can you measure how well your application is performing? These are some of the questions that are answered in this book. Along the way you will also learn the "why" of optimizing. You'll discover why you should optimize a specific component, why selecting one function over another is beneficial, and how to find and use the optimization tools available to the open source community. You'll also learn how to deploy caching software as well as web server software. Pro PHP Application Performance will also teach you more advanced techniques, such as: Using Xdebug to profile functions that are not running as efficiently as possible. Comparing opcode executed by different PHP functions to narrow the search for functions that run efficiently. Using strace to analyze Apache while your application is served to the user. Once you complete this book you will have a complete sense of where to start optimizing and, most importantly, have the tools which allow you to continue optimizing in other PHP applications going forward. What you'll learn * How to improve the performance of existing PHP applications * How to maximize the performance of existing operating systems and databases * How to refactor existing PHP code for better performance * How to identify and rectify bottlenecks in PHP code * How to take advantage of variable caching to increase performance * Strategies for selecting server hardware for best performance Who this book is for This book will appeal to established PHP developers who wish to write new, complex applications or want to rearchitect existing ones. Developers of other languages such as Ruby, Python, and VB.NET will also have an interest in the techniques for tuning the performance of web servers, databases, and operating systems. Table of Contents * Benchmarking Techniques * Improving Client Download and Rendering Performance * PHP Code Optimization * Opcode Caching * Variable Caching * Choosing the Right Web Server * Web Server and Delivery Optimization * Database Optimization * Installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, and PECL on Windows * Installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, and PECL on Linux