Pressflow, Varnish and Caching, oh my!

A case study on how Oregon school web sites hosted with the Oregon Virtual School District are scaling up their web presence using Drupal.

The problem: the second-largest school district in Oregon, Salem-Keizer School District, wanted to replace their existing outdated static web site with a modern CMS. They chose Drupal as their platform. The new site was successful enough that they had a huge increase in traffic – enough to bog down the entire system.

The solution: Varnish and Pressflow to the rescue!

Specifically, we’ll talk about:

Caching with Varnish

• What worked, and what didn’t

• Troubleshooting and optimization tools

Optimizing cacheability of Drupal sites with Pressflow

• APC – it caches more than just opcode