cc'ing wikitech-l for your questions to get answers direct from the source instead of me playing telephone :)
<quote name="billinghurst" date="2014-09-16" time="00:53:18 +1000"> > Thanks Greg. There was nothing mentioned in today's Tech news, so I have > just appended some information to enWS. At the WSes we load some big > transcluded pages and I have set a little challenge for users to make some > comparisons. Are you going to be running data comparisons? Is this > something that user (anecdotal) semi-quantitative data is of value? If > yes, to the last point, what sort of direct data comparison might be of > value? > > Regards, Billinghurst > > On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:42:14 -0700, Greg Grossmeier <[email protected]> > wrote: > > <quote name="billinghurst" date="2014-09-13" time="09:38:47 +1000"> > >> > * There will be a method to opt-in to using the new HHVM-powered > >> > backend > >> > for all WMF wikis. It'll be implemented via a BetaFeature to make > it > >> > as easy as possible for people to participate. There should be no > >> > noticeable negative impact and hopefully only positive impacts. > >> > > >> Greg, > >> > >> The last dot point. Is it there against Thursday 18th? Is it to mark it > >> against another point? The HHVM component sits against next month on > the > >> deployment page, so the uncertainty. > > > > To answer all of your questions I'll try to rephrase things in a > > different manner and add some more details. It might be a little too > > detailed at first, I'll try to tl;dr at the end: > > > > HHVM is a virtual machine for PHP which improves the performance of the > > servers by... a lot. We're a little shy of sharing predictions of how > > improved the performance will be, but it'll be worth the effort. > > > > Thus far HHVM has been deployed to the Beta Cluster, which is our > > testing environment based in WMF Labs. It has been running there for > > about a month so far. > > > > Along side that we have a few servers in the production cluster that > > have been migrated to HHVM. These servers are only sent user traffic if > > and only if the user sets a cookie in their browser. > > > > In addition to that there are safe-guards in place where if a request to > > an HHVM server fails, our Varnish layer will take note of that and > > resend requests to a normal (non-HHVM) server. > > > > The confusion you have regarding HHVM being in the "Next Month" section > > is because this work is on-going. There were more bullets in that list > > initially and we will work through them as we get closer to the full > > rollout/completion. > > > > What is happening next week is this: There will be a new Beta Feature > > available to all users that will allow them to opt-in to using the HHVM > > servers by default (the Beta Feature simply sets the cookie I mentioned > > above). That will happen on Thursday after the normal MediaWiki deploy. > > > > If things go well, users who opt-in will have a better experience: pages > > should load faster and edits should save faster, for example. > > > > If things don't go well, users who opt-in shouldn't see anything worse > > than normal (given that safe-guard I mentioned above in the Varnish > > layer). > > > > tl;dr: > > > > HHVM, an improved (faster) php server, is in the process of being tested > > at scale and rolled out. We are still at the beginning stages but we > > feel comfortable enough with the stability we've gained in the Beta > > Cluster to open it up to more users through a Beta Feature. This Beta > > Feature will be available for all users on Thursday afternoon (Pacific > > timezone). Users who opt-in should have a faster wiki experience and in > > the worst case will not see anything different than normal. > > > > I hope that helps. If you have any more questions please don't hesitate > > to reply and cc wikitech-l, where the experts on the matter can answer > > more questions. > > > > Best, > > > > Greg > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors -- | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D | _______________________________________________ Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors
