keys to world-class retail web performance - expert tips for holiday web readiness
TRANSCRIPT
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Presents:
Webinar
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Expert Guidance on Retail Web Performance
TODAY’S SOASTA PRESENTERS
Cliff Crocker: VP Product Management (via Walmart)Rob Holcomb: VP Performance Engineering (on loan from our retail
clients)Moderator: Brad Johnson
Agenda: • Poll question• Closing the gap in front- and back-end web performance and
reliability• Collecting real user data to define the most realistic test
scenarios• Preparing properly for the virtual walls of traffic during peak
events• Leveraging CloudTest technology
Questions: Submit in the question box during event
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If you had to pick one area, which would you select as the most critical to test for web performance?
•Page speed = 26%•Reliability and scalability in production = 55%•Impact of integrated and 3rd party services = 5%•Back end infrastructure = 13%
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o 10 years working with (and for) retailers to improve performance of their mobile and web applications
o Joined SOASTA this year!
• Last 2 years leading Performance and Reliability for @Walmartlabs (multi-tenant global ecommerce platforms)
o Core focus: Understanding, measuring, and testing for the optimal user experience
Source: Flickr – asparagus_hunter
PageSpeed vs. Reliability
Two Different Battles in the Performance War
PageSpeed•Client-side (browser)
•Best practices to decrease perceived load time
•Focus is on front-end development
•FASTER
Reliability•Scalability
•Consistency under load – peak period degradation
•Identifying bottlenecks across the entire stack
•STRONGER
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o PageSpeed alone isn’t enough
o Common misconception: Traditional optimizations for front-end translate to reliability under increased capacity
“An analysis carried out by Compuware found that the official London 2012 Olympics website may struggle to cope with high demand”
Source: Computerworlduk.com
“Olympics websites get gold medal for performance”
Source: www.v3.co.uk
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o The two disciplines are not necessarily reliant on each other
o Both are a necessary part of your holiday readiness strategy
thenounproject.com
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Walmart.com – PageSpeed Impact on ConversionSource: http://www.meetup.com/SF-Web-Performance-Group/events/50485972/
Conversion Rate: Percentage of users who bought something during their visit
Load Time:Time spent loading content and page processing (client-side)
Huge drop in engagement with every second increase
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o Make fewer & smaller requests (images, js, css, etc.)
o Use a Content Deliver Network (CDN)
o Leverage browser caching
o Simplify the DOM (reduce the complexity of your HTML)
Webperf 101 – basic principles
o http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html
o https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-practices/rules_intro
o http://webpagetest.org
Resources:
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o While there are many things you might find ‘wrong’ with your site using traditional measurement tools, there are a few that give you the biggest bang for the buck
o Consequently, they are typically some of the easier issues to address
1. HTTP Keep Alives – use them
2. Clean out your closet, remove tags and other third party content that you no longer need
3. Combine your JavaScript and CSS
4. Enable HTTP Compression
5. Compress your images
6. Check cache settings
Typically will have an impact on the scalability of a site as well
Identifying Single Point of Failure (SPOF)
Source: Flickr – CyberHades
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o Even big whales go down
• No matter how solid your site is, dependency on 3rd parties can lead to your downfall
o Requests for third parties can kill your performance if you don’t plan for their failure
o Relevant Posts:
• http://blog.patrickmeenan.com/2011/10/testing-for-frontend-spof.html
• http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/06/01/frontend-spof/
o Tools:
• SPOF-O-MATIC (Chrome Plugin): https://github.com/pmeenan/spof-o-matic
• 3P0 (YSLOW Plugin)https://github.com/stoyan/yslow
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‘Site X’ – Normal State - .9s start render‘Site X’ – Simulated SPOF - 43s start render!
Listen to Your UsersSource: Flickr – jamescridland
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• Where should I test from?• What browsers should I
optimize for?• What are the most critical
paths to test?• What is the baseline for
server response?• What is my cache/hit ratio?• How long is a typical
session?• What are page views/hour at
peak?
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o Understand your critical path• Not always the most common
path through a site
• According to Forrester (2007) – average conversion rate is 2.9% - this means that you should be testing the 97th percentile!
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o Test early – don’t wait until October!
o Test in production throughout the year
o Test often / baseline each release in PQA
o Use repeatable tests
• Apples to Apples
• Maintain scripts to minimize test creation efforts
o Pick metrics that make sense to you and your organization
• TTFB, Page Views, Orders Per Minute
o Testing Third Parties
• CDNs – Yes, but partner with them for success (SOASTA is Akamai-approved)
• Other – it depends… remember SPOF
SOASTA White Paperswww.soasta.com/knowledge-
center/whitepapers
“Retail Best Practices”
“Strategies for Seasonal Readiness”
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Rob Holcomb
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Thanks & Q&A
Contact SOASTA:www.soasta.com/cloudtest/[email protected] us:
twitter.com/cloudtesttwitter.com/cloudtest
facebook.com/cloudtestfacebook.com/cloudtest
White Papers, Webinar Recordings, Case Studieswww.soasta.com - Knowledge Center
Next Webinar: Aug. 28, 10 a.m. PST“Getting Started with CloudTest Lite”
Register at www.soasta.com/knowledge-center/webinars
Contact Cliff: [email protected] @cliffcrocker
Contact Rob: [email protected] @rcholcomb