Scaling Magento by COPIOUS Inc.

Reid Parham, Aaron Edmonds, and Kyle Terry talk about what it takes to scale Magento for a large retailer.

Aaron talks about working on how to work around some core magento-isms. Kyle gives an overview of the hardware cluster powering the whole systems. Reid goes on to explain the people and team aspects of working on such a large and complex system.

Transcript

1. Scaling Magento
   Reid Parham, Aaron Edmonds, and Kyle Terry
   Public distribution: sensitive information omitted.
   

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2. COPIOUS
   ● User-Centered Digital Experience Agency
   ● Strategy
   ● Experience
   ● Engineering
   ● http://copio.us/about
   

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3. Scale Your Code
   A.K.A. Magento is hard
   

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4. Code Management
   ● Magento is big!
   ○ Our project has over 820,000 lines of PHP
   ● Multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-store
   ● Classes can have complex names
   ○ *cough*
   Enterprise_Reward_Block_Adminhtml_Customer_Edit_T
   ab_Reward_History_Grid_Column_Renderer_Reason
   *cough*
   

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5. Code Management (cont.)
   ● Configuration is driven by XML
   ● The dreaded EAV
   ● Magento Indices
   ● Event-Observer
   

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6. Code Management (Tools)
   Good tools make the job easier!
   ● A good IDE
   ○ Magicento
   ● Commerce Bug 2
   ● n98-magerun
   

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7. Code Management
   ● NEVER modify core files
   ○ Magento’s forum never helped
   ● NEVER* add files to app/code/local/Mage
   ○ Magento was built to be modular**
   ● Test your code with flat catalog enabled
   and disabled
   ● Before overwriting classes, check for events
   

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8. Code Optimization (Quick Wins)
   Caching Magento Blocks
   ● DIY! Event to add cache data:
   core_block_abstract_to_html_before
   ● OR use a module https://github.
   com/aligent/CacheObserver
   

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9. Code Optimization (Quick Wins)
   Mage::getModel(‘catalog/product’)->load($_product-
   >getId());
   ● This is bad in templates and when looping
   over product collections
   ● Load with initial data select
   ○ used_in_product_listing attribute option
   

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10. Code Optimization
    Make efficient use of Magento indices
    ● Example: Catalog URL Rewrites
    ○ Includes all products by default (including products
    marked as “Not Visible Individually”)
    ○ Do you need SEO friendly URLs for products that
    will never be seen???
    ○ Reduce your index size by up to 95%
    ○ Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Url::_getProducts
    

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11. Code Optimization (Quick Wins)
    Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Product_Typ
    e_Configurable_Product_Collection::
    isEnabledFlat?
    FALSE
    

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12. Systems
    ● Hardware Profile
    ● Cluster Design
    ● Scaling
    

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14. Hardware Profile (overview)
    ● 2 racks of hardware and dozens of servers
    ● Top quality of available (and compatible)
    chipsets and memory
    ● Buffered DDR3; 1 channel per CPU
    ● 126 kW of stable, reliable, redundant, and
    backed up power
    ● Minor kernel tweaks
    

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15. Hardware Profile (network)
    ● NetScaler for load balancing
    ○ Vserver pools
    ○ Balances web, database, admin and endeca
    ○ Monitors will remove downed hosts
    ● Redundant Network Infrastructure
    ○ Backplane uses LACP (link aggregation) for
    redundancy, load balancing and failover
    ○ HA pairing of configurations
    

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16. Hardware Profile (network)
    Dynamic port forwarding for browsing:
    kyle@localhost $ ssh -L 2221:127.0.0.1:2221 whitelistedhost.example.com
    kyle@whitelistedhost $ ssh -D 2221 cluster.example.com
    Static port forwarding for Navicat SSH tunneling (tunneling through a tunnel):
    kyle@localhost $ ssh -L 2222:127.0.0.1:2222 whitelistedhost.example.com
    kyle@whitelistedhost $ ssh -L 2222:127.0.0.1:22 cluster.example.com
    

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17. Hardware Profile (web)
    ● Dual Intel Xeon E3-1230 @ 3.30GHz
    ● 32 GB RAM
    ● Dozens of servers
    ● nginx and PHP5-FPM
    ● 6:1 ratio of PHP processes to CPU cores
    

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18. Hardware Profile (database)
    ● Redundant database hosts
    ● MySQL 5.6 chosen for scaling capability
    ● tcmalloc further improves throughput
    ● Master/slave replication
    ● Standby hosts for warm failover
    ● Failure point: > 4,000 checkouts/hour
    

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19. Hardware Profile (database)
    ● Quad Intel Xeon E7-2860
    ○ 10 cores + hyperthreading each totalling 80 threads
    ● 128 GBs of RAM
    ● RAID10 SSDs for data
    ○ writeback cache; noatime,noexec mount options
    ● RAID1 HDDs for OS
    

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20. Oops!
    

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21. Hardware Profile (cache)
    ● Powering discrete instances of Redis
    ○ Sessions
    ○ Full page cache
    ○ Magento back end cache
    ○ Background processing queues
    ● Discrete instances are for threading, differing
    memory limits, differing backup rules, and
    multi-db deprecation
    

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22. Hardware Profile (cache)
    ● Content is compressed with LZF
    ○ Compression and decompression with LZF is faster
    than gzip so it’s an ideal solution
    ● Decreased utilization of network capacity
    ● Sentinel for failover (soon)
    ● RDB BGSAVE: prime number intervals
    

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23. Compression Outcomes
    

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24. Hardware Profile (cache)
    ● Quad Intel Xeon E5-2620 @ 2.00GHz
    ● 128 GBs of RAM
    ● 4 bonded network interfaces
    ○ Prevents saturation of private network
    ○ 4 Gb/s
    ○ Bonding mode 5 (balance-tlb)
    ■ No special switch support
    ■ Nice when the colo manages the switch
    

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25. Hardware Profile (utility)
    ● Cron and systems jobs
    ● Scripts
    ● Deploys
    ● Chef Server 10 for deploy and configuration
    ● Tests
    ○ Database test suite in Perl (Test::DatabaseRow)
    ● Backups (and copies)
    

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26. Cluster Overview
    ● Production
    ○ Most hardware serves production
    ● Staging
    ○ Some data promoted to production nightly
    ● Preview{1..n}
    ○ Instances for testing and previewing new features,
    bug fixes and design changes.
    

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27. ● Aggregate hardware availability exceeds
    six nines (99.9999%)
    ● Software availability is ~99.999%
    ● Software, including deployments: 99.98%
    ● Software, including maintenance: 99.9%
    ● Non-recoverable human errors: 98%
    Production Uptime
    

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28. Scale Your Team
    

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29. Team Profile
    ● 16 committers; 8.25 FTE
    ● 4 Project Managers
    ● 5 departments
    ● 31 vendors
    ● 5 time zones
    

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30. Team Values
    ● State your needs; respect others’
    ● Respect is given, then adjusted
    ● Process can always change and improve
    ● Work/life balance
    ● Mature and non-aggressive; mediate conflict
    ● Honesty and transparency
    

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31. Team Mantras
    ● Trust (relevant) data; make things visible
    ● Measurable, repeatable, falsifiable
    (scientific method)
    ● Redundancy reduces risks (if documented)
    ● Set expectations (timing, contents, formats)
    and deliver on them
    

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32. Team Mantras
    ● Automate what is repeated
    ● Use known patterns and
    proven architectures
    ● Grow talent from within
    ● Compartmentalization of some data,
    code, and knowledge
    

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34. 10 Integrated Vendors
    Adobe, Akamai, tax calculation,
    legacy software, Ebay, gift cards,
    ERP (fulfillment and inventory), Oracle,
    Tierpoint (Dallas, Seattle, Spokane),
    Endeca provider
    

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35. advertising, application analytics, email,
    hardware analysis and functionality, maps,
    offsite storage, promotions, payment gateways,
    remarketing, shipping estimates, SMS,
    social networks, uptime
    21 Accessory Vendors
    

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36. ● Group emails: avoid general questions,
    assign actions to people, minimize
    distribution lists
    ● Identify urgency of requests
    ● Use email filters
    ● Coach and mentor
    Effective Communication
    

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37. ● Daily phone calls: only while needed
    ● Set an agenda; keep to a schedule
    ● Encourage people to skip calls
    or to leave early
    ● End the call when completed
    Effective Communication
    

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38. Tools
    ● GitHub
    ● Google Docs
    ● Pivotal Tracker
    ● Conference calls, Skype, and IM
    ● BugHerd
    

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41. Launch Day
    

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42. Release Day
    

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43. QA preparation
    

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44. Productive!
    

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45. Off-hours chaos
    

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46. Build Knowledge
    ● Document the “obvious”
    ● 1000-line README
    ● Capture failures and solutions
    ● What happens when?
    ● Which database and server?
    

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47. Automation Schedule
    

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48. “This is how we work.”
    

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49. Example Git Workflow
    

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50. Learn from previous failures.
    

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51. Code Review
    ● Standardize pull request structures
    ● Constructive feedback; ask questions
    ● emoji-cheat-sheet.com
    

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52. Code Review
    Pull requests can also be workspaces
    

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53. Releases and Git flow: rhythm, ownership, and pride.
    

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55. Deployments
    ● Monday through Thursday only!
    ● Communication: tickets, cross references,
    pull requests, QA status, and releases
    ● Set expectations: timings for outages,
    maintenance, and degraded functionality
    ● Are we done, yet?
    ● Explain outcomes and options
    

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56. Community Participation
    ● Patches submitted
    ○ Redis
    ○ Cm_RedisSession
    ○ Cm_Cache_Backend_Redis
    ○ https://github.com/magento/magento2
    ● Modules improved
    ○ CacheObserver
    ○ VF_CustomMenu
    

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57. Community Participation
    ● http://magento.stackexchange.com/
    ● http://stackoverflow.com/
    ● phpredis bug(s)
    

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58. ● Spence, Muneera U. Collaborative
    Processes lecture. 13 Apr. 2006.
    ● Marks, Andrea. "The Role of Writing in a
    Design Curriculum." AIGA: Design Education
    (2004).
    ● Katzenbach, Jon R., and Douglas K. Smith.
    The Wisdom of Teams. HarperCollins, 2003.
    Collaboration Texts
    

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59. ● Bennis, Warren, and Patricia W. Biederman.
    Organizing Genius. Perseus, 1997.
    ● Marcum, James W. After the Information
    Age. Peter Lang, 2006.
    ● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration
    (and collaborative method)
    Collaboration Texts
    

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60. See Also
    GitHub (and Gist)
    @parhamr
    @kyleterry
    @aedmonds
    

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61. Questions?
    

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