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Is your DotNetNuke site slow? It's probably your fault.

by Will M on 05 Sep 2009 12:51 PM

We receive a lot of questions and comments about the speed and performance of our site. One customer last week even asked if we were using DotNetNuke. We haven't altered DotNetNuke at all. The biggest differences come from skin structure and module selection. Just to be clear, your hosting environment does play a key role in site performance as well. Obviously there are other factors that can bring your site to a standstill. I will follow up with another article on modules, and possibly another on hosting environments. For right now, we will look at how your decisions can affect performance.

DotNetNuke is an environment you control for building a web application or web site. It's not one of those turn-key, instant website tools. DotNetNuke provides much more control and powerful tools, which of course requires more responsibility. Think of it like your computer. Your hosting environment is similar to your computer hardware. Unless you want to look a black screen and flashing cursor you need to load an operating system. DotNetNuke is the operating system. Now that you have the operating system loaded the computer starts to become useful. Now you have colors, a few utilities and a couple basic applications to help you get started. You have this brand new toy and can't wait to start using it. What you do next is the biggest decision and where so many people go wrong.

Group A.
They have a blueprint for the layout and know exactly what features they must have versus features that would be nice. They have a pretty good, if not perfect idea of how the site should be designed and where content or applications will be placed. They have a clear budget and detailed timeline. If you are a designer or developer this is the group you see on very rare occasions.

Group B
Some people want to see all the possibilities. This usually starts with the free stuff. They see 20+ free modules they can install with one click and say this amazing! Now they have to see what they can do with the module. In just a couple of clicks all the free modules are up and running. Now they want even more. They go to the store and buy a few $9 to $20 modules. Just as they are about to leave they see an amazing new skin that they just have to have. Those of you with any bit of IT knowledge can probably relate Group B to a family member that asks for help with setting up their new computer and a few months later asks you to come fix it.

The two groups I described are intended to represent the extreme. Most people will end up somewhere in between Group A and Group B. Just remember, the group that you favor more will be a major factor in the performance of your site.

5 Comments for Is your DotNetNuke site slow? It's probably your fault.

Frozen DNN
05 Sep 2009 04:28 PM

I was part of group B when I first started now I am somewhere between A and B. This is not my profession you know. Just doing this as a hobby. I am learning.

Cliff Hammock
05 Sep 2009 05:12 PM

I definitely lean towards Group A. I learned very early on how important module vendor selection is when using John LaRoche's MagicGadget module. It was a great replacement for the Text/HTML module that was tokenized heavily and provided a lot of flexibility. It was so great that I built about 10 client sites on it back in the DNN 2.1.2 days. Then when the breaking changes came in DNN 3, I found myself, along with many others, up the well known creek without the proper mode of transporation. Because the vendor just disappeared totally I had to rebuild all my sites from scratch. I am sure others did as well. To be brief, review this short post from 2004. http://forums.asp.net/p/752203/7536...spx#753676

So I try to deal with vendors who have had a long term presence in the marketplace and have personally provided me with good support. I am not sure how to know which modules are faster than others, but I tend to lean towards modules like XMod that allow me to build all the modules I need to replace all the little $20 modules you see on Snowcovered. I have only recently found that Data Springs modules allow me to do the same types of development. I also typically look for modules where the vendor puts out source code in case the developer goes away.

Will, I look forward to more posts along these lines so I can learn how to optimize my sites. I operate dedicated servers and feel pretty good about the response time on my sites. But I know I can always do better.

Cliff

Steven Webster
05 Sep 2009 07:07 PM
www.overlooktechnologies.com

One of the things that makes DNN attractive in the first place to many (me included) is it's low barrier to entry and the number of cheap/free modules available. For people coming from other solutions (or even just Dreamweaver and/or Visual Studio) DNN is like a dream come true. Integrators can leverage the DNN framework to "assemble" websites for clients in a fraction of the time it took before. That is what initially attracted our business to it. It delivered a CMS that was better than our own "home grown" applications, it was free, it had a community and you could inexpensively purchase functionality from an open marketplace.

Over time we've developed our own modules, bought some real duds, dealt with core performance issues (remember version 4.5?) built a server farm, setup hundreds of sites, converted classic ASP sites to DNN, moved customers from our own early modules over to more mature third party modules, etc. Lately, we've been moving more and more to (OPM) other people's modules. For us, and many others I assume, this is a very natural and organic process of moving DNN from a cool solution for one or two sites - to the backbone of your enterprise (and business). In our case - it's reduced expenses and allowed us to deliver far more functionality to our clients than another company of our size.

Today - we focus in on just a few module providers. We typically only work with those that provide source (AM excluded), we thoroughly test everything, every upgrade every interaction on local and test server before putting anything into production. We also typically only purchase an enterprise license from module vendor. Yes, this costs more money and takes more time - but we've been able to almost "virtualize" our development team.

Lastly, and to bring it home, our most recent project involves moving from one large DNN instance to multiple, smaller, "dumber" installations. This further improves performance for our clients and mitigates the risks associated with one module (or core for that matter) taking down the entire enchilada while we run around like crazy trying to figure out what happened.

Duane
05 Sep 2009 07:20 PM

My experience is lot like Cliff's, We were stuck on DNN 2.1.2 up till spring of 2008. The forum we migrated to from Snitz forums was never updated and it took us 3 years and lot's of $$$$ to find a migration path to Active Forums. Today our goal is support Will’s effort and adapt our website using Active Modules only as far as we can. Yes there are list of what we call trustworthy developers who are actively updating their modules and we do utilize their module on projects too!

Zymm
06 Sep 2009 04:35 PM

I wish pricepoint was the only factor indicating quality. We have used a lot of ridiculous modules with price ranges in the hundreds of dollars, which have brought the sites to a standstill. On the other hand, free modules like Delisoft Tablocalization worked very well for years in lieu of DNN core features providing such functionality.

The good news is the developers of the clunkers follow Darwin's rules and expire - that or just hide behind slow support responses/20 questions until the customer gets frustrated and moves on. Hey they've made their buck off you and there's always more where you came from right?

On Active Modules where you see constant updates and get same-day support you know it's a business on the go. There's no substitute for a competent sysadmin/development process in a business, but we can at least outsource key components to places like Active Modules, Snapsis, Ifinity, Mandeeps and Markit Modules (to name a few reliable developers) and not have to worry about it.

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