file compression in iis6? - RESOLVED

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Does anyone know how to compress site files through an iis6 server? Should this work for that as well?

I don't think .htaccess works with iis. I would make the changes suggested at....

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771003(WS.10).aspx

but the host/server administrator won't give me access to cpanel or php.ini (If there even is one for IIS, I don't really know)

Any help would be much appreciated as my site is still fairly slow at times. I've already implemented changes with full page caching and I've added 'define('CACHE_FRONTEND_OPTIONS', serialize(array('automatic_cleaning_factor' => 0)));' to site.php but it's still not fast enough all the time.

You can view the site athttp://www.eclinicalsol.com

thanks for any help you can offer.

lackadaize
 
jvansanten replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
IIS just works differently than the LAMP stack, is much less popular as a commodity web server platform. And, much of the configuration needed really requires admin access, which it looks like you're not going to have access to.

For your specific request, if another web host is possible, you might consider a host that specializes in C5 and can provide informed support.

But, even if that isn't in the cards, there are things that you can do, and even if you do migrate to LAMP stack host, these can be positive improvements.

The first thing I'd do is use Firefox with YSlow to figure out exactly where the bottlenecks are.

Your home page has a payload of around 2 meg, which is pretty big. Of course, there's the typical C5 Javascript/jquery and style sheet payload, as well as your own -- about 500 meg. Sites that strive for a fast response do have various strategies to minify/economize on these downloads. You can search in the forums for that.

You're using custom fonts, which require additional bandwidth.

But, the big issue appears to be the graphic downloads -- coming in at 1 meg. Since these are already compressed, you'll have no benefit from gzip. But, when JPGs get up to 200K, you should be able to reduce that significantly with a lower level of quality. Depending on content, I typically use 40 to 70% (the latter for people) and the typical weight of even the most complex is around 50K.

Additionally, you can set an "expires" header for the various files. These allow the client system to cache the files rather than download when the site is accessed -- thus significantly enhancing performance. On a LAMP server, this is accomplished through the .htaccess file. On Windows, you'll need access to the IIS Manager, which I'm not sure your host currently provides. Here's the instruction for IIS6:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6616520/how-do-you-implement-far...

HTH
lackadaize replied on at Permalink Reply
lackadaize
Thanks, I'm somewhat new to web development so I haven't really been exposed to the optimization process. I was able to shave the overall file size by about 60%. Certainly made a difference in page-load time. Sorry for the late reply, I've been dealing with a whole host of issues since the site went live a few weeks ago. Thanks a bunch for the help.
jvansanten replied on at Permalink Reply
No worries. Glad to hear that worked out for you.