The performance optimization of Magento webshop, it is not only writing your module in the clean way, it is also optimization of core code. During the session, you will learn how to deal with optimization of most common Magento bottlenecks at catalog, shopping cart and checkout pages. Processing more than 10 orders per second, serving category, product and checkout pages within 800 milliseconds (and even less) without front cache is possible.

1. Fixing Magento Core for Better Performance
Ivan Chepurnyi
Co Owner / Trainer
EcomDev BV

2. Ivan Chepurnyi
About me
Meet Magento
• I am Ukrainian
• Technical Consultant, Co-owner at EcomDev B.V.
• Was one of the first five developers in original Magento core team
• Providing trainings and coaching Magento Developers in Europe
• Main areas of my expertise:
– System Architecture
– Performance Optimization
– Test Driven Development
– Complex Customizations

3. Ivan Chepurnyi
Regular Store Bottlenecks
Meet Magento
• Overall Problems
• Category Pages
• Product Pages
• Checkout Pages

4. Ivan Chepurnyi Meet Magento
Overall Problems

5. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #1
Meet Magento
Non optimized layout handles usage
Magento adds on every category and product page a layout
handle with its entity id, so you have layout cache unique for
each product or category!

6. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
Add an observer to controller_action_layout_load_before,
check loaded handles and remove items that match starts with
CATEGORY_ and PRODUCT_, except PRODUCT_TYPE.

7. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
public function optimizeLayout($observer)
{
$update = $observer->getLayout()->getUpdate();
foreach ($update->getHandles() as $handle) {
if (strpos($handle, 'CATEGORY_') === 0
|| (strpos($handle, 'PRODUCT_') === 0
&& strpos($handle, 'PRODUCT_TYPE_') === false)) {
$update->removeHandle($handle);
}
}
}
Example of Observer

8. Ivan Chepurnyi
Drawback
Meet Magento
Widgets based on Category Id and Product Id handles will not
work. Hovewer you always have for them “Custom Layout
Update XML” attribute on entity level.

9. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #2
Meet Magento
No cache for CMS Blocks
Magento doesn’t cache them by default. On average projects
you have up to 10-20 CMS blocks that can be edited by
customer on every page.

10. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
Add an observer to core_block_abstract_to_html_before,
and specify required cache information for the block, like cache
key (that is a block identifier) and cache tags
(Mage_Cms_Model_Block::CACHE_TAG).

11. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
public function optimizeCmsBlocksCache($observer)
{
$block = $observer->getBlock();
if ($block instanceof Mage_Cms_Block_Widget_Block
|| $block instanceof Mage_Cms_Block_Block) {
$cacheKeyData = array(
Mage_Cms_Model_Block::CACHE_TAG,
$block->getBlockId(),
Mage::app()->getStore()->getId()
);
$block->setCacheKey(implode('_', $cacheKeyData));
$block->setCacheTags(
array(Mage_Cms_Model_Block::CACHE_TAG)
);
$block->setCacheLifetime(false);
}
}
Example of Observer

12. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #3
Meet Magento
Magento top menu
Since CE 1.7 version of Magento, they moved menu to another
block, but forget to add caching to it. So now each page load
spends from 100-300mson building top menu!
And the more categories you have, the more time is spent!

13. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
1. Add a cache tags via observer similar to optimization of
CMS blocks. The difference only, that you will need to add
category cache tag instead:
Mage_Catalog_Model_Category::CACHE_TAG
2. Rewrite Mage_Page_Block_Html_Topmenu to add
category id into the menu node class name. Yes, there is no
event for this :(
3. Add JS on the page that will use current category id for
highlighting top menu item.

14. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
public function optimizeNavigationCache($observer)
{
$block = $observer;
if ($block instanceof Mage_Page_Block_Html_Topmenu) {
$cacheKeyData = array(
Mage_Catalog_Model_Category::CACHE_TAG,
'NAVIGATION',
Mage::app()->getStore()->getCode()
);
$block->setCacheKey(implode('_', $cacheKeyData));
$block->setCacheTags(
array(Mage_Catalog_Model_Category::CACHE_TAG)
);
$block->setCacheLifetime(false);
}
}
Example of Observer

15. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
protected function _getMenuItemClasses(Varien_Data_Tree_Node $item)
{
$classes = parent::_getMenuItemClasses($item);
// Will be something like category-node-#id
$classes[] = $item->getId();
return $classes;
}
Overridden Block Method

16. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
JS implementation is up to you.
I believe you can do that yourself :)

17. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #4
Meet Magento
Magento Visitor Logging
Mage_Log and Mage_Report modules perform a write
operation on every page view to own tables. After few monthes
it becomes very slow, since size of the tables increasing
dramatically.

18. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
1. Remove observers of Mage_Log and Mage_Reports
module by config.xml
– Events for Mage_Log: http://bit.ly/magelog
– Events for Mage_Reports: http://bit.ly/magereports
It will remove observers by using of observer type disabled
and repeating the observer XML path.

19. Ivan Chepurnyi
Drawback
Meet Magento
You will not be able to use native Magento reports for visitors
activity. Hovewer it they are irrelevant, since most of merchants
don’t use it, since they are using other analytics software.

20. Ivan Chepurnyi Meet Magento
Category Pages & Product Pages

21. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #1
Meet Magento
Layered Navigation
For each attribute you have in Magento and that is marked as
filtrable, it will make a call to getAllOptions() of attribute source
model. Even if there is no filter results for it, it will invoke
attribute option collection load.
For merchants who have a lot of attributes, it is a huge
performance bottleneck.

22. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
• Remove collection usage usage for each item by rewriting
Mage_Eav_Model_Entity_Attribute_Source_Table class.
• Implement a static method, that will load values for all
attributes at once. If you will not use objects, it won’t take too
much memory.
• Override getAllOptions() method to use your static method.
• You can find class by this url: http://bit.ly/mageoption

23. Ivan Chepurnyi
What it does?
Meet Magento
// This one will use collection getData() method
// to retrieve array items instead of collection of objects.
Mage::getResourceModel('eav/entity_attribute_option_collection')
->setPositionOrder('asc')
->setStoreFilter($storeId)
->getData();
On the first call to getAllOptions() it will preload all
attribute values for current store in array format.

24. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #2
Meet Magento
Dropdown Options on Product Page
The problem is the same as with layered navigation, but not
that much visible if you don’t have too much dropdown
attributes to show. Product getOptionText() uses the same
getAllOptions() method call.
This one is automatically fixed by fixing previous one.

25. Ivan Chepurnyi
What it does?
Meet Magento
$key = self::_getCombinedKey($storeId, $value, 'store');
if (isset(self::$_preloadedOptionHash[$key])) {
return self::$_preloadedOptionHash[$key];
}
return false;
On the first call to getOptionText() it will preload all
attribute option_id to value array for current store.

26. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #3
Meet Magento
Configurable Products
Magento is not using flat version of products for configurable
products children retrieval. So every configurable product page
is a bottleneck, especially for fashion retailers.

27. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
1. Rewrite the class with this long name:
Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Product_Type_Configurable_Product_Collection
2. Overriden isEnabledFlat() method that should return the real
information about flat availability.
1. Make sure that attributes, that your customer is using, are
included into the flat version of catalog. Mark them as
“used_in_product_listing”.
2. Fix Magento bug with filters by attribute id

28. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
public function isEnabledFlat()
{
return Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Product_Collection::isEnabledFlat();
}
public function addAttributeToFilter($attribute, $condition = null, $joinType = 'inner')
{
if ($this->isEnabledFlat() && is_numeric($attribute)) {
$attribute = $this->getEntity()
->getAttribute($attribute)->getAttributeCode();
}
return parent::addAttributeToFilter($attribute, $condition, $joinType);
}
Overriden Collection

29. Ivan Chepurnyi Meet Magento
Checkout Pages

30. Ivan Chepurnyi
Problem #1
Meet Magento
Catalog Price Rules
Each time when Magento calls collectTotals() method on
quote object, it walks though all items in the quote and invoked
getFinalPrice() method on your product. This method
dispatches catalog_product_get_final_price event, that is
observed by Mage_CatalogRule module.

31. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
1. Rewrite Mage_CatalogRule_Model_Observer class and
create a new method that will preload rule prices for quote.
2. Define $_preloadedPrices property to cache results per quote
object.
3. Add an observer in configuration for
sales_quote_collect_totals_before event, for original core class
alias, but with the method you’ve created.
Full observer class can be found at this url: http://bit.ly/magerule

32. Ivan Chepurnyi
Solution
Meet Magento
public function beforeCollectTotals(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
{
// … Omited retrieval of product ids and customer group with website
$cacheKey = spl_object_hash($quote);
if (!isset($this->_preloadedPrices[$cacheKey])) {
$this->_preloadedPrices[$cacheKey] =
Mage::getResourceSingleton('catalogrule/rule')
->getRulePrices($date, $websiteId, $groupId, $productIds);
}
foreach ($this->_preloadedPrices[$cacheKey] as $productId => $price) {
$key = implode('|', array($date, $websiteId, $groupId, $productId));
$this->_rulePrices[$key] = $price;
}
}
Created method code

33. Ivan Chepurnyi
There are more issues…
Meet Magento
But it is too much for one presentation :)
Let’s better talk about high loaded projects!

34. Ivan Chepurnyi Meet Magento
Are you using Varnish for your projects?

35. Ivan Chepurnyi
Varnish Issues
Meet Magento
Common issues caused by developers, when they use
Varnish on the project
• Developers usually hide poor code quality behind front
cache server
• Doing backend callbacks for functionality that can be fully
done by modern browser in JavaScript.
• Caching static files by Varnish

36. Ivan Chepurnyi
ESI include is an evil for Magento
Meet Magento
Only when the content for ESI include can be cached by
Varnish. It doesn’t make to make ESI includes for shopping
cart, compare and recently viewed reports.

37. Ivan Chepurnyi
Goog ESI includes
Meet Magento
• Magento Top Menu Navigation
You don’t need to clear all varnish cached pages, if your
customer updated the name of category or re-arranged the
position of items.
• CMS Static Blocks
If you have a static that is used almost on every page, you don’t
need to clear page cache, if its content changed.

38. Ivan Chepurnyi
AJAX Callbacks Issue
Meet Magento
AJAX call should be done only when needed.
Do not perform a bunch of calls just because the data should
be loaded from the server. It is always possible to decrease
amount of calls by using your frontend skills.

39. Ivan Chepurnyi
Use Cookies & HTML5!
Meet Magento
• You can always set a custom cookie in Magento when
customer:
– Adds a product to a cart
– Logs in or logs out
– Adds a product to a compare list
• You always can store up to 2Mb of data into sessionStorage
of your visitor browser! Only IE7 doesn’t support it.

40. Ivan Chepurnyi
How it can help you?
Meet Magento
• You can decrease amount of AJAX calls to the number of
real user actions.
– Customer adds product to cart, you make an ajax call to
update session storage
– Customer logs in, you make and ajax call to update the it
again
– Customer adds product to wishlist or compare products
list, you update a session storage.
So in the end it should be1 action – 1 AJAX call,
and NOT 1 page view – 1 AJAX call!

41. Ivan Chepurnyi
Recently Viewed Products
Meet Magento
For recently viewed products, you even don’t need to make any
AJAX calls
– Render a hidden block on the product page
– When customer views a product, add this hidden block to
session storage
– On any other page, just render data by JavaScript!

42. Ivan Chepurnyi
Conclusion
Meet Magento
Be smart and use Varnish correctly!

43. Ivan Chepurnyi
OpenSource Roadmap 2014
Meet Magento
1. Finalize EcomDev_Varnish module and make it open
source;
2. EcomDev_PHPUnit refactoring for API based fixtures;
3. Working on EcomDev_Index module, to provide alternative
of standard indexation mechanism in Magento:
– Flat Indexers (failover indexation)
– UrlRewrites (full refactor of existing module
– Layered Navigation (Sphinx)
– Better Search (Sphinx)

44. Ivan Chepurnyi Meet Magento
Thank You!

45. Questions?