Posts tagged optimised
Notes on Magento benchmarking..
0We all know that Magento is a lot more demanding than most e-commerce solutions. Providing a Magento specific hosting environment at a reasonable price is the key to our business.
Like other hosts we use a couple of benchmarking sites to help show our hosting prowess. The two key sites are:
http://www.magespeedtest.com/
http://magebenchmark.sonassi.com/
Both are useful for different reasons.
Mage speed test.
Created by the rather talented Ashley Schroder mage speed test is essentially a managed Seige benchmark interface. It will take the standard magento sitemap as the input and run tests against random pages within the site. One of the most useful features is the ability for anyone to test their own setup. It is very useful for testing in real time, changes to server configs.
The idea was that end users would get a representative idea of what their host could offer. Dx3webs was the second host to join this site and we added a couple of our packages. Shortly after we were noticing that other hosting companies were coming in with load times that could only be achieved with reverse proxy servers. Eventually we decided to add a Varnish enabled option to the list and currently we are neck and neck with two other hosts offering their own cached versions. We are currently using Cache Extension powered by Varnish which is a free extension. There is also PageCache powered by Varnish which was previously a paid for extension but has recently gone free. We will be testing this in the near future.
We know form speaking to Ashley that he is keen to ensure that his tests are an accurate reflection of real world tests and that each store needs to be functional to the end user. With the use of these Varnish extensions you can have insanely fast stores AND dynamic content.
One final comment on Mage speed test. Each of the hosts that post on there are highly reputable and enjoy a strong reputation and are active participants in the Magento community. Any of the packages listed on there will be plenty fast to run most magento stores and I don’t believe most shoppers would spot the difference between a store delivering 15 transactions per second and 30 transactions per second. At Dx3webs we aim to offer the best possible home for your magento store. This means not only being able to provide a fast hosting environment but also best possible up time, excellent support and buckets of advice and guidance.
The key thing to recognise is that Magento is demanding, you will need a host who cares about performance and you will have to pay a slight premium for the privilege.
Oh and did you notice that the fastest result in the table is also the cheapest and the only one based in the UK.
Magento Benchmark
The original Magento benchmark site has been around for a long time now and is run by Manchester magento developers Sonassi. Whilst it is not as handy as Mage speed test and aimed exclusively at hosts it goes a long way to give a much better picture of actual server performance that simple Seige tests. ”Based on levels of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 30 concurrent connections, there will be two tests. Both tests are custom written and have been designed to reflect real-world load not artificial testing such as siege/ab.” Full details of the test can be read here.
As you can see from the table, Dx3webs offers excellent value for money on our entry level package.. again, we not only offer the cheapest package but also a generous disk allocation, unlimited traffic and no limits on the domains you can run from your store for less than £15 per month. Top this off with a free two week trial…
Magneto hint : Google Base – Read Timed Out after 10 seconds
3A few of our clients have informed us that they are receiving the above error while attempting to update google base.
This appears to be something that google has changed rather than a problem with magento or zend.
The answer requires a slight tweak of the core code in this case
/lib/Zend/Http/Client.php
find the line
‘timeout’ => 10
and increase to 30.
Now try and reload your google base info
Magento hint : css / js / javascritp files trying to show as absolute server paths
0Essentially you need to tell your installation not to merge javascirpt or css. Turnign this off will allow you to try again. Either try and make sense of the non-css non-javascript backend to get to the developer section under system > config or use the phpmyadmin to alter the settings in core-config-data table.
Gmail google apps POP: Username password not accepted
2Every now and then a client comes across a problem that has our whole team scratching their heads. Sometime it is the nightmare of a problem that no one can replicate. Actions x, y and z on computer a, b, c are working just fine but on client computer d.. nothing. In this case x, y and z were trying to get Outlook 2007 to send and receive emails from a Google Apps account. What could be more simple?
Well for one client nothing was working. We logged onto their machine via logmein and began trouble shooting remotely.. not helped by their internet randomly dropping connections.. thank you BT Interent.
Every setting was correct, the same accounts could be accessed on any other machine except the one the client needed. Every time a “username password not accepted” would be thrown. We checked for firewalls, av, mall ware, spy wear etc nothing.
Well it turns out that it is possible to fail the google app CAPTCHA silently. That is google does not inform you that you have incorrectly entered their impossible to read CAPTCHA box. Instead they will block the ip address you are using from sending or receiving email with a cryptic “username password not accepted” error.
To fix : http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and try again.. simple as that.
Magento tip: How to change default grid / list sort order and what is Best Value anyway?
1In versions of magento pre 1.4 in order to change the sort order of the grid / list layouts you had to resort to editing files. However, in 1.4 this is some what easier. The default is Best Value… though I have noticed that in some templates it shows up as ‘position’. What does this even mean?
Paypal payments received but not showing in Magento backend.
3Paypal is one of the quickest and easiest (if not the cheapest) way of persuading your Magento site to accept credit, debit and paypal payments. Support for Paypal within Mangento is great.. it even has its own panel. However, some of the bugs that arise are bizzar and can delay starting your shop for weeks.
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