How to prepare Django for a possible slashdotting?
django, optimization, performance, traffic, webfaction
Solution
- Use memcache and caching middleware.
- Be sure to offload serving statics.
- Use CDN for statics. This doesn't directly affect Django, but will reduce your network traffic.
Anything beyond that — read up what others are using:
- Scaling Django Web Apps By Mike Malone
- Instagram Architecture
- DISQUS Architecture
Problem
I would like to prepare my website for a possible influx in traffic. This is my first time using Django as a framework, so I'm unsure of the modifications that should be made to assure that I'm ready and won't go down. What are some of the common things one can do to prepare a Django website for production-level traffic? I'm also wondering what to expect in terms of traffic numbers. I'm currently hosted at Webfaction with 600GB/month of traffic. Will this quickly run out? Are there statistics on how big 'slashdotted' events are?