14 DAY TRIAL // The websites development and their dynamics of apparition is strictly related to the evolution of new technologies. Web applications, especially those based on server side programming languages, allow anyone to rapidly build a new website, even with automatic content published by default.
Server side programming is widely used in production of high performance applications. This type of web applications usually contain client side scripts and may also work with a database having the role of a back-end. For example, the majority of blogs, classified ads websites, virtual stores and more are created by using server side scripts that interact with a database to ensure the functionality of the website. Depending on the database type, the optimization techniques will be different, but some general rules could be applied in order to improve the performance of database driven websites.
It is well known that the most popular web applications are made with PHP programming language and use a MySQL database. As a consequence, the most used web services are of LAMP type. Connections handling in case of Apache web servers and relational databases present scalability issues which highly influence the overall performance of a given server side application. The problems will appear when high server loading occurs. If the Apache server parameters are not optimized for high server loading and, respectively, if the MySQL server is not tuned up, your web application will stop responding to HTTP requests and website visitors will receive errors instead of desired webpages.
Another factor influencing the performance of database driven websites is represented by the structure of MySQL database. By using any database management system you will be able to optimize your database tables in order to speed up queries execution. Generally, all unused database tables should be deleted and, if your application permit the integration of third party plugins, it is also recommended to minimize the usage of plugins or widgets whose functioning is based on database queries.
The number of supported simultaneous database queries must be established and the required optimization methods must be implemented. By controlling all parameters that influence the application response, you will be able to obtain the desired level of performance for your database driven website.