Sphinx Search

[TECK]

Sorry, I cannot share my work because it is part of my optimization package I offer as a paying service to my clients (like running 3 queries on the vBulletin frontpage without file edits). I spent countless hours through white nights to test various scenarios to get it working perfectly. Basically, it is a combination of server optimizations and PHP code modifications. I also tested the optimization package into several large boards with over 5,000 users online. It improved the overall vBulletin performance and saved them a lot of money on cluster upgrades:

Optimizations Enabled
500 online users, 10 seconds parallel test

779 fetches, 500 max parallel, 1.564e+07 bytes, in 10.0024 seconds
20077 mean bytes/connection
77.8815 fetches/sec, 1.56363e+06 bytes/sec
msecs/connect: 1.50359 mean, 131.5 max, 0.07 min
msecs/first-response: 1674.58 mean, 8914.71 max, 97.031 min

1000 online users, 10 seconds parallel test

633 fetches, 1000 max parallel, 1.26093e+07 bytes, in 10.0019 seconds
19919.9 mean bytes/connection
63.2879 fetches/sec, 1.26069e+06 bytes/sec
msecs/connect: 124.028 mean, 3007.64 max, 0.073 min
msecs/first-response: 1971.85 mean, 8686.33 max, 1.099 min

Optimizations Disabled
500 online users, 10 seconds parallel test

269 fetches, 500 max parallel, 5.34661e+06 bytes, in 10.0094 seconds
19875.9 mean bytes/connection
26.8747 fetches/sec, 534159 bytes/sec
msecs/connect: 0.904112 mean, 85.94 max, 0.074 min
msecs/first-response: 3783.43 mean, 9272.46 max, 1.373 min

1000 online users, 10 seconds parallel test

263 fetches, 1000 max parallel, 5.32541e+06 bytes, in 10.0039 seconds
20248.7 mean bytes/connection
26.2897 fetches/sec, 532332 bytes/sec
msecs/connect: 0.824681 mean, 78.576 max, 0.071 min
msecs/first-response: 3868.94 mean, 8879.29 max, 165.277 min

Test Explained
The test emulated the matching number of users who tried to access as many times as possible the forums, from various locations.
1000 online users, 10 seconds parallel test means that 1000 users visited without interruption the forums. for 10 seconds while navigating as fast as they can through pages.
63.2879 fetches/sec means that those 1000 users managed to visit 63 pages per second, for a total of 633 fetches per user... pretty fast those guys on their browser.

Test Comparison

OPTIONS		Optimizations Enabled	Optimizations Disabled
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Users		1000	500		1000	500
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Fetches		633	779		263	269
Fetches/sec	63.28	77.88		26.28	26.87

In other words, with the optimizations enabled, the overall server performance was improved by 290%. That is almost 3 times faster compared to the optimizations disabled.

As I said before, I do not use Orban's code approach in any way, shape of form... I don't have one single line of PHP code identical to his and the Sphinx configuration file is exactly the opposite what you think it should look like.