Part 1 tests were flawed in that I tested Apache 2.2.3 with keepalives OFF. So this is round 2 tests with Apache 2.2.3 keepalives On thrown into compare with Litespeed 4.0.18 inbuilt caching feature. The Litespeed 4.0.18 cache feature might have a bug in not observing mod rewrite urls to cache only specified files which upgrading to 4.0.19 may fix. I'll update to Litespeed 4.0.19 and rerun tests as well.
Update: Upgraded from Litespeed 4.0.18 to 4.0.19 and fixed the cache feature bug see http://www.litespeedtech.com/support/forum/showpost.php?p=23024&postcount=11
Configurations tested
Results
Part 1 tests illustrated a slightly different picture to what these updated tests had showed. The end result though was still the same though, Litespeed + inbuilt cache was up to 2x times faster than Apache + Varnish for simple test.php file apachebench runs.
The test.php file used contains
Apache httpd.conf contains
Litespeed 4.0.18 cache policy is set to
.htaccess used in /var/www/html doc root for Litespeed 4.0.18 cache tests
ApacheBench command ran back to back 5x times
:for non-varnish tests:
:for varnish tests on port 8888:
Varnish 2.1.4 configuration settings used
Server Configuration:
References:
Update: Upgraded from Litespeed 4.0.18 to 4.0.19 and fixed the cache feature bug see http://www.litespeedtech.com/support/forum/showpost.php?p=23024&postcount=11
Configurations tested
- Apache 2.2.3 keepalives off
- Apache 2.2.3 keepalives on
- Apache 2.2.3 keepalives on + Varnish 2.1.4
- Litespeed 4.0.18 no cache
- Litespeed 4.0.18 no cache + Varnish 2.1.4
- Litespeed 4.0.18 + inbuilt cache
Results
Part 1 tests illustrated a slightly different picture to what these updated tests had showed. The end result though was still the same though, Litespeed + inbuilt cache was up to 2x times faster than Apache + Varnish for simple test.php file apachebench runs.
- Apache stand alone with keepalives enabled just edged out Litespeed no cached results at less <600 concurrency level. Past >600 concurrency level, Litespeed no cached average and minimum requests per second were much better. Note: Apache cpu load was much higher hitting into double digits by 5th run at >600 concurrency levels, while Litespeed cpu load was <1.5 all the way up to 1000 concurrency levels. Update: seems apachebench test configuration can play a big part, below tests were with 1000 requests tested, if you increase requests per test to 10000, litespeed starts to really shine more in stand alone nocache and cache tests - favouring even more, litespeed for scalability as traffic increases. Will retest later.
- Apache + Varnish caching with default.vcl kept the same trend in just edging out Litespeed + Varnish caching when below <600 concurrency level. At 800 concurrency level, Litespeed + Varnish took the lead over Apache + Varnish. But at 1000 concurrency level not sure what happened as Litespeed + Varnish took a nose dive for the first 3 runs at 1/2 the rps compared to Apache + Varnish lowering the average to 6,163.51 rps compared to Apache + Varnish at 8,643.01 rps average.
- A note on Varnish caching tests for part 2: Part 2 used a tuned Varnish configuration settings which consistently averages around + 500 rps more than untuned out of the box Varnish configuration.
- Litespeed using inbuilt cache feature was the overall winner though with a comfortable lead. Litespeed + inbuilt cache was 4x times faster than Litespeed with no cache at 200 concurrency level and 4.5x times faster at 1000 concurrency level. Litespeed + inbuilt cache was up to 1.6x to 1.9x times faster than Apache + Varnish at concurrency levels 200 all the way up to 1000.
The test.php file used contains
Code:
<?php
header('CurrentTime: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s', time()).' GMT',true);
echo "time()=" . time() . "<br>";
echo "date()=" . date(DATE_RFC822) ."<br>";
?>
Code:
#disk cache
<IfModule mod_cache.c>
<IfModule mod_disk_cache.c>
CacheRoot /lscache/
#CacheEnable disk /
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
Code:
Enable Cache:Not set
Cache Expire Time (seconds): 120
Cache Request with Query String:Not set
Cache Request with Cookie:Not set
Cache Response with Cookie:Not set
Ignore Request Cache-Control:Not set
Ignore Response Cache-Control:Not set
Code:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule test.php - [E=Cache-Control:max-age=45]:for non-varnish tests:
Code:
ab -k -n 1000 -c 200 192.168.56.101/test.php
Code:
ab -k -n 1000 -c 200 192.168.56.101:8888/test.php
Code:
/etc/sysconfig/varnish
# My Advanced configuration
# Main configuration file. You probably want to change it :)
VARNISH_VCL_CONF=/etc/varnish/default.vcl
# Default address and port to bind to
# Blank address means all IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces, otherwise specify
# a host name, an IPv4 dotted quad, or an IPv6 address in brackets.
VARNISH_LISTEN_ADDRESS=
VARNISH_LISTEN_PORT=8888
# Telnet admin interface listen address and port
VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_PORT=2222
# The minimum number of worker threads to start
VARNISH_MIN_THREADS=1
# The Maximum number of worker threads to start
VARNISH_MAX_THREADS=1000
# Idle timeout for worker threads
VARNISH_THREAD_TIMEOUT=120
# Cache file location
VARNISH_STORAGE_FILE=/var/lib/varnish/varnish_storage.bin
# Cache file size: in bytes, optionally using k / M / G / T suffix,
# or in percentage of available disk space using the % suffix.
VARNISH_STORAGE_SIZE=64M
# Backend storage specification
VARNISH_STORAGE="file,${VARNISH_STORAGE_FILE},${VARNISH_STORAGE_SIZE}"
# Default TTL used when the backend does not specify one
VARNISH_TTL=120
# DAEMON_OPTS is used by the init script. If you add or remove options, make
# sure you update this section, too.
DAEMON_OPTS="-a ${VARNISH_LISTEN_ADDRESS}:${VARNISH_LISTEN_PORT} \
-f ${VARNISH_VCL_CONF} \
-T ${VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_ADDRESS}:${VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_PORT} \
-t ${VARNISH_TTL} \
-w ${VARNISH_MIN_THREADS},${VARNISH_MAX_THREADS},${VARNISH_THREAD_TIMEOUT} \
-u varnish -g varnish \
-s ${VARNISH_STORAGE} \
-p thread_pool_min=300 \
-p thread_pool_max=2000 \
-p thread_pools=2 \
-p listen_depth=4096 \
-p session_linger=25/100/150 \
-p lru_interval=2 \
-p thread_pool_add_delay=2 \
-p cli_timeout=10"- VirtualBox Guest - CentOS 5.5 64bit
- Xeon W3540 @3408Mhz - assigned 2 cpu cores
- 1GB memory allocated system memory + 64MB GPU memory @DDR3-1550Mhz 9-9-9-24
- 20GB allocated (640GB Samsung SATAII OS Disk)
- Apache 2.2.3 Prefork, PHP 5.3.5 (mod_php), MariaDB 5.2.4, Memcached 1.4.5, Varnish 2.1.4
- Litespeed 4.0.18, PHP 5.3.4 (LSAPI v5.5), MariaDB 5.2.4, Memcached 1.4.5, Varnish 2.1.4
- 2.6.18-194.32.1.el5 #1 SMP
- Disk partitions set to noatime
- Memcached 1.4.5 = 2x 16MB instances
- Varnish 2.1.4 = 64MB size
References:
Last edited:
