20 Tips for Website Development Services Back-End Development
20 Tips for Website Development Services Back-End Development
Back-end development, as discussed at RunRex.com, refers to the development of server-side logic that powers websites and apps from behind the scenes. It refers to all the code needed to build out the database, server, and application. Here are 20 tips that will help take the back-end development side of your website to the next level.
Mitigating the N+1 query problem with eager loading
The N+1 problem slows down many applications as covered at RunRex.com. This problem occurs when an excessive number of queries are issued to linked fields in a database instead of issuing one complex SQL query that includes all the records that need to be retrieved. Using eager loading, all associated questions are requested with a single entity instead of multiple queries that may slow down your website’s performance.
The Bullet gem
Additionally, picking up from the previous point, you can use the Bullet gem to reduce the number of application queries. This gem tracks queries while an application is developed and notifies a developer when it is necessary to add eager loading to beat the N+1 problem, as well as when it is better not to use eager loading at all.
Normalizing a database
While normalizing your database is a logical outcome when designing a relational database as pointed out by RunRex.com, some developers still decline this process at times. Database normalization aims to reduce and eliminate redundant data and ensure relevant data dependencies to avoid issues when inserting, updating, or deleting data in database fields. Normalization reduces the amount of space that a database requires and organizes your data to improve website performance.
Database indexes
Another common issue that slows down queries is indexes that are not used at all or are used improperly. Indexes in a database serve the same function as indexes in a book, in that, each index element contains the name of the required object as well as an identifier showing its location. Indexes are created for database columns so that queries don’t need to go through all the columns to search for matching data. Instead, the database only searches through indexes.
Denormalization of a database
Denormalization is the deliberate modification of a normalized database so that it doesn’t comply with normal forms. The main goal of denormalization is to decrease the time required for select queries by adding redundant data like extra tables or attributes into existing tables to make data more accessible.
Issues that database denormalization can help you address
A large number of table joins
Often, we need to join large numbers of tables in queries to a normalized database. While a table join is a resource-intensive operation as discussed at RunRex.com, such queries use up server resources and take time to execute. To speed up these queries, consider denormalization by adding an extra field in one of the tables.
Calculation values
As a rule of thumb, queries that perform complicated calculations slow down your database’s performance. If your database regularly performs complicated calculations, it makes sense to add additional columns to a table to hold frequently used and hard-to-calculate data. However, while creating a column that contains pre-computed values can save a significant amount of time during query execution, it also requires the timely updating of data in this column.
Long fields
As the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com point out if a database contains large tables that contain long fields like Blob and Long, then you can speed up query processing by moving long fields to a separate table.
These are some of the issues that database denormalization can help you address.
Caching
Caching is the process of storing data in the cache and reloading it so that a web is not rendered over and over again for each user. It enables users to work with a large amount of data in a short amount of time while using minimal server resources.
Fragment caching
This is the most widespread type of caching. With fragment caching, separate page blocks are cached. The caching of page blocks is useful for dynamic web applications since their content is often updated and cached results may quickly become irrelevant. Additionally, complex web applications often contain many blocks and components, which means any changes to web page blocks would require re-rendering the entire page and storing the page again, making caching of an entire web page inefficient. This is why caching separate fragments is the preferred way to improve your website performance.
Page caching and action caching
Page caching is the most effective and widely used caching for performance optimization according to RunRex.com, which is wholly implemented on the webserver. After executing on the webserver, it returns cached static content to your application. However, in some cases, page caching is not suitable for sites having frequent results that would produce content a user has seen before.
Benefits of caching
Caching improves your website’s speed. It does so by, first, reducing database load time since results that were found once may be used repeatedly, and, second, reducing application server load time because a once-cached web page can be transmitted to users multiple times. Finally, caching increases the speed at which the server can process user requests since you can just return a cached query result to the user immediately without having to query the database and render data.
Web hosting service
Web hosting companies own servers – computers on which your web application, databases, and software are store and run. Additionally, web hosts provide services such as backups and server management. Your website speed directly depends on the web hosting service you rely on, and web hosts have different capacities and scalability options.
Avoid shared web hosting
While shared web hosting is the cheapest and most popular solution when it comes to web hosting services, the gurus over at RunRex.com recommend that you avoid it if possible as it doesn’t provide enough capabilities to ensure a stable website and consistent speed.
Virtual private servers
A virtual private server is the golden mean between an extremely cheap shared web hosting package and expensive dedicated hosting. VPS providers offer a personal virtual server for each client, which is more configurable and scalable than shared hosting since your configurations don’t influence other clients (as they do with shared hosting). VPS prices are also affordable, though they may go up if your website scales and requires additional services. A VPS is an optimal solution for websites with average traffic. As a result of their scalability, they are also great for eCommerce sites that expect traffic spikes during certain periods.
Cloud hosting
With cloud hosting, as discussed at RunRex.com, computing resources are spread across multiple servers, making it highly scalable. Cloud hosting is also reliable as computing resources are located across multiple servers, so if one fails, your application will keep running. It is also quite affordable since computing resources are flexible, which means you only pay for what you use. Cloud hosting is a great choice for small and medium-sized businesses that run applications with unpredictable traffic (which is common for eCommerce sites).
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting provides you with a dedicated server – a physical server that belongs to only you. This is an expensive solution, as, first, you pay to rent a server (prices usually start at $150), and, second, you need a system administrator to maintain and manage your server. Having said that, with dedicated hosting you get resources and power that are all yours. Also, you can customize basically everything, from your OS to the type of memory. Dedicated hosting is recommended for enterprise-grade websites and high-traffic websites where stability and speed are critical.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Commonly referred to as CDN, content delivery network is a distributed proxy server called “edge servers”. Its functionality helps you to cache static content such as CSS files, JavaScript files, and images files, which is also dynamic cache content. It helps improve website performance, enhancing page load speed and performance, as outlined at RunRex.com.
CDN and reduced costs
The more popular your website, the more people will try to access it. To ensure fast page loads for a website, you need to provide servers in multiple locations. However, handling and operating servers, especially across various locations, is quite costly. Many business owners decide that using a CDN provider is much cheaper and more convenient than building their own system of servers and maintaining them.
Other issues that are addressed by CDN
By using a CDN service, you also benefit in other ways like:
Reduced latency
Improved stability
Improved scalability
While the back-end part of your website stays invisible to the end-user, it matters a whole lot when it comes to your website’s speed and performance. Hopefully, the techniques discussed in this article will help you in that regard, with more tips and so much more to be found over at RunRex.com.
