Ways to Boost your Drupal Site Performance!
Drupal website users must be happy because of the manoeuvrability that this open source software provides. Started as a message board, this software has come thus far and has become one of the best tools for developing websites which are the busiest in the community as of now. So, here are some tailor made solutions which you can apply to enhance the performance of your Drupal site. [HTML5 Drupal Templates]
> Improving Drupal Site Speed
- Cache the entities in addition to basic caches provided by Drupal framework.
Caching process should definitely be carried out for:
- Minimizing JS files which can be done with the help of Speedy, or Entity Cache.
- Loading images only when required with the help of LazyLoader saves the upload time and utilizes resources only when needed.
- Converting invisible image files into JPGs using CSS Sprites.
- Views Cache: Views is a tool which helps the developer cache the output delivered as well as query results. Content Vies Cache stops the repetition of caching of similar content which is accessed time and again.
- Disable unused modules
Make a list of modules to be used at the time of building the wire-frame only. This helps keeping the unused modules in check and allows the developer to switch up or switch down the use of module as per the need.
> Improving UpTime
Make use of Specific hosting services which are designed to promote the working of a Drupal site. These hosts have tailor-fit solutions for a Drupal site and have optimal resource pool for making the Drupal site a good deliverable.
Hosts specific for a Drupal site provide solutions for:
- Administrative services
- Caching activities
- Configuration modules
- Additional services such as Content Delivery Network, Performance testers etc.
> Monitoring Site Performance
Site Audit: This tool allows the user to find out loopholes existing in a Drupal site which is not optimized the way it should be.
Apache Benchmark: This is a comprehensive community which simulates the traffic coming to a Drupal site and analyzes its experience. Upload time of images, working of various web pages and smoothness of instruction processing are some of the aspects which are covered by Apache Benchmark. It can help the developer enhance the performance by plugging loopholes existing on various web pages.
> Upgrade to Drupal 8
Drupal 8 has advancement on all the processes and frameworks which are mentioned in this article. The advanced version of Drupal has optimal solutions for the basic performance boosting activities such as optimizing speed, caching, specifying host services and also disabling of unused modules.
> Use of Boost
Boost is an effective solution for increasing the site speed leaving behind the caching process in terms of delivering results. You require robots.txt and .htaccess files to upload this speed enhancer. It is effective when the Drupal is being run in shared environments and the need is to cater to a number of anonymous users.
> Mongodb
Other than caching, use of ‘noSQL’ modules can also be a workable solution for speeding up a Drupal site. MongoDB is a database system which stores JSON documents and avoids the use of resources which call for JOIN statements. Since this resides in memory, the writing is really fast as the transportation time of data is not to be worried about.
> Wrap Up
Drupal is a scripting module which is a pot-pourri of various brains sharing their experience while working on blogs where posts are to cascade at very fast speed. This scripting platform has lots of unexplored features which people tend to overlook due to lack of time and thus, face the heat because of slow performance. So, be accustomed with all the features and their functionalities to enjoy the best of Drupal.
