Speed Implications of Contexts

Hi there,

Looking in to a multi-domain set up using contexts - how many contexts can ModX be reasonably expected to manage? Similarly, how many pages can each context manage, without causing the database to grind to a halt.

Cheers,

Steve

There’s plenty of topics around the forum on resource limits, so I suggest you check those out.

As for contexts - each context has its own cache so I personally (although I have no data to back it up, so don’t just take that for granted) think that limit is as big as the MySQL limit.


What is usable though? Do you really want a list of 20, 50 or even more contexts in your resource tree? If you’re looking to building a site that big it might be easier to take xPDO and write your own CMS from scratch using that, just like MODX is built upon it.

Quote from: Mark at Feb 15, 2011, 02:38 PM

What is usable though? Do you really want a list of 20, 50 or even more contexts in your resource tree?

Interesting point there Mark - what usibility issues do you percieve? Do you think the ModX resource tree is able to cope with handling multiple contexts in the front end. 20-50 sites may be the kind of range I’m thinking of.

Will do a search on the forum on resource limits thanks.

Cheers,

Steve

I think the resource tree can handle it technically - no problem. IIRC it fetches resources per nested level, so you shouldn’t run into problems there.


But when you have a resource tree with 30 different contexts.. which each have say anywhere between 10 and 40 root level resources.. that’s a big list you have to go through finding that one resource you want to update. That’s the usability issue I’m thinking of right now.

When you have 20-50 different sites running on one install it may be more convenient and usable to have a dropdown box at the top (or something similar) where you can choose the context you want to look at.. that’s just my $ 0.02 though.


If those 20-50 sites are high traffic, it’s good to think about if your server can handle it too. All requests are processed by the one index.php file which then works with xPDO and eventually the database. Personally I have no idea how well that would work but probably worth considering before putting all your sites in one manager.

Thanks Mark - these are exactly the type of considerations I was hoping to discuss here.

Completely agree that Contexts would be be better served from a drop menu rather than the resource tree - in fact I can’t see a lot of reason for that not being default functionality.

I think I’ll have to put together a proof of concept before continuing, but hopefully others will be able to chime in on the whole single DB / entry index.php thing.

Thanks again,

Steve