Edmonds Commerce - Symfony Performance Optimisation
Overview
Doctrine tuning, cache pools, compiled containers. Optimise your Symfony applications to handle scale and deliver sub-100ms response times.
What We Do
Performance optimisation for Symfony applications. We identify bottlenecks, implement caching strategies, optimise Doctrine queries, and tune infrastructure to deliver fast, responsive applications.
Performance Optimisation Areas
Doctrine ORM Optimisation
Tune Doctrine for maximum performance.
Optimisation Techniques:
- Query analysis and optimisation
- N+1 query prevention
- Relationship eager loading
- Query result caching
- Denormalisation for read performance
- Custom DQL queries
- EntityRepository optimisation
Query Analysis
Identify and fix slow database queries.
Query Optimisation:
- EXPLAIN plan analysis
- Index strategy planning
- Query rewriting for efficiency
- Connection pool tuning
- Batch processing
- Bulk operations
Caching Strategies
Implement caching at multiple levels.
Cache Layers:
- Redis for query result caching
- HTTP caching headers
- Fragment caching
- Cache tags
- Invalidation strategies
- Cache warming
Cache Pools
Leverage Symfony's cache pool system.
Pool Types:
- Redis pool for distributed caching
- File pool for local caching
- APCu pool for in-process caching
- Hybrid strategies
Compiled Containers
Optimise service container for production.
Container Optimisation:
- Container compilation
- Service pre-instantiation
- Configuration caching
- Lazy loading
Infrastructure Tuning
Optimise server configuration.
Infrastructure Tuning:
- PHP opcache configuration
- JIT compilation (PHP 8.0+)
- Xdebug removal in production
- Memory management
- Connection pooling
Performance Metrics
Response Time Targets:
- API endpoints: sub-100ms
- Web pages: sub-200ms
- Database queries: sub-10ms
- Cache hits: <1ms
Key Metrics:
- Time to First Byte (TTFB)
- API response time
- Database query time
- Memory usage
- CPU utilisation
- Cache hit rate
Our Performance Optimisation Process
1. Baseline Measurement
Profile the application to establish baseline performance metrics.
Profiling Tools:
- Blackfire for code profiling
- New Relic for APM
- Symfony Profiler for development
- Database EXPLAIN analysis
- Custom load testing
2. Bottleneck Identification
Identify performance problems using profiling data.
Common Issues:
- N+1 query problems
- Missing database indexes
- Unoptimised caching
- Synchronous heavy operations
- Large result sets
- Memory leaks
3. Targeted Optimisation
Implement specific optimisations.
Optimisation Types:
- Fix N+1 queries through eager loading
- Add indexes for frequent queries
- Implement caching strategies
- Move operations to queues
- Optimise assets
- Tune configuration
4. Testing & Validation
Verify optimisations deliver measurable improvements.
Validation Process:
- Production-representative load testing
- Before/after comparison
- Real-world usage monitoring
- Regression testing
5. Monitoring & Maintenance
Continuous monitoring ensures optimisations remain effective.
Monitoring:
- Performance metric tracking
- Query analysis
- Cache effectiveness
- Resource utilisation
Common Performance Issues
N+1 Query Problem: Loading related objects one-at-a-time instead of eagerly.
Solution: Use eager loading with joinedLoad() or leftJoin()
Missing Indexes: Database scanning full tables instead of using indexes.
Solution: Add indexes for frequently queried columns.
Unoptimised Caching: Expensive operations recalculated repeatedly.
Solution: Implement caching with proper invalidation.
Synchronous Heavy Operations: Operations that should be async timeout.
Solution: Move to message queue with Messenger.
Large Result Sets: Loading thousands of objects into memory.
Solution: Use pagination or chunking.
Technology Stack
- Symfony with performance optimisations
- Doctrine with query analysis
- Redis for caching and sessions
- PostgreSQL with proper indexing
- Blackfire for profiling
- New Relic for monitoring
- Messenger for queuing
- Docker and Kubernetes
Performance Best Practices
Database:
- Use eager loading for relationships
- Add indexes for query columns
- Partition large tables
- Use denormalisation strategically
- Implement query result caching
Caching:
- Cache expensive queries
- Cache computation results
- Use HTTP caching headers
- Implement fragment caching
- Plan cache invalidation
Async Processing:
- Move heavy operations to queues
- Process reports asynchronously
- Send emails through jobs
- Import data in background
- Generate PDFs async
Infrastructure:
- Enable PHP opcache
- Optimise PHP settings
- Use connection pooling
- Load balance requests
- Monitor continuously
Scaling Strategies
Vertical Scaling: More powerful hardware.
Horizontal Scaling: More servers behind load balancer.
Database Scaling: Read replicas, write sharding.
Caching Layer: Redis to reduce database load.
Async Processing: Queues to prevent timeout failures.
Performance Profiling Tools
- Blackfire.io: Code profiling and optimisation
- New Relic: Application performance monitoring
- DataDog: Metrics and monitoring
- Symfony Profiler: Development profiling
- MySQL EXPLAIN: Query analysis
Target Audiences
High-Traffic Applications: APIs and sites serving thousands of requests/second.
E-Commerce Platforms: Optimise search and checkout for conversions.
Data-Heavy Applications: Analytics platforms processing large datasets.
Real-Time Systems: Low-latency requirements for updates and notifications.
Performance Tuning Guide
Step 1: Profile
Establish baseline metrics and identify slowest endpoints.
Step 2: Analyse
Dig into profiling data to find root causes.
Step 3: Optimise
Implement targeted fixes in priority order.
Step 4: Validate
Measure improvements and compare to baseline.
Step 5: Monitor
Continuously track performance in production.
Related Services
Infrastructure & DevOps: Kubernetes for scaling, Docker, CI/CD.
Doctrine Optimisation: Specialised database performance tuning.
API Development: Performance-optimised REST and GraphQL APIs.
Load Testing: Capacity planning and bottleneck identification.
Contact
Based in the UK, serving global clients. Discuss your performance concerns, scaling requirements, or optimisation strategy.