Semantic web development and publishing

Drupal and Server Profile (part 3)

Drupal is a very flexible content management system and can solve a wide range of publishing problems. It is capable of handling everything from highly trafficked, often updated, large sites on multiple servers such as drupal.org down to a humble blog. The type of performance issues a site can have will therefore vary depending on the server setup, the type of site and how it is used.

This article breaks the various site and server setups down into a number of dimensions. Knowing where your site fits will help you identify potential issues. Take a moment to see where your site fits and keep it in mind as you move through the rest of teh guide.

Characteristic Optimize No problems
Size many nodes few nodes
Activity high traffic low traffic
Users logged in anonymous
Page browsing dispersed concentrated
Contention many writes few writes
Content heavy light
Functionality rich poor
Audience dispersed concentrated

If your sites tended to fall into the “Optimize” column then you are more likely to run into performance issues. If you are running a small, infrequently updated, lightweight site with limited functionality and few anonymous users who are located near the server then maybe this guide isn’t for you :) Hopefully everyone else will find something them in this guide. As we progress, the green info boxes will summarize which kind of site can benefit most from the performance tip offered.


This article forms part of a series on Drupal performance and scalability. The first article in the series is Squeezing the last drop from Drupal: Performance and Scalability.

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