Sitecore Fetch Squad

Here is a quick checklist that you can use in order to get more performance out of your Sitecore Media Library’s delivery.


1. Ensure data/item/prefetch caches are of a sufficient size.

• Check our cache configuration reference
• The following shared source modules should be useful in this exercise:
  http://trac.sitecore.net/CachingManager
  http://trac.sitecore.net/CacheTuner

2. Ensure client caching is properly configured (MediaResponse.XXX settings).
3. Media Library structure – make sure the tree is balanced.
4. Change MediaLinkPrefix from ~/media to something else, for example “-/media”:

- set the value of the “Media.MediaLinkPrefix” to alternative prefix:

<setting name="Media.MediaLinkPrefix" value="-/media" /> 

-add the following line to the customHandlers section:

<customHandlers>
   <handler trigger="-/media/" handler="sitecore_media.ashx" />
   <handler trigger="~/media/" handler="sitecore_api.ashx" />
   …
</customHandlers>

This really helps for high traffic websites. Apparently tilde in the path forces different way of resolving the system permissions on a resource on Windows Server.

6. Consider adding other edge caching options in front of the web servers.
7. Leverage CDN like AKAMAI.

Some links and food for thought:

• http://sdn.sitecore.net/Scrapbook/Changing%20media%20URLs%20in%20Sitecore%206.aspx
• http://www.sitecoredevelopment.com/en/MarkGraber/Using-Akamai-Net-Storage-for-Sitecore-Media-Items.aspx
• http://sdn.sitecore.net/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?postid=18768
• http://sdn.sitecore.net/SDN5/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?postid=27646
• http://sdn.sitecore.net/SDN5/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?postid=15132
• http://sdn.sitecore.net/SDN5/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?postid=26647

8. Use dedicated “Sitecore media server” (e.g. replace hostname in media links to point to another Sitecore instance; would require some customization).

Some great stuff here:

• http://mcore.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/dedicated-image-server-and-sitecore/
• http://mcore.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/dedicated-image-server-in-sitecore-part-2/

Thanks to the guys from our brilliant customer service for helping me to come up with a more complete list.

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