Managing the cache on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) can greatly improve the server’s performance by reducing the load on the server’s hard drive. Here’s how you can manage the cache on a VPS server:
1. Install Caching Software: This is the first step to manage cache. Varnish & Memcached are popular caching software that can be used. Consult your server’s documentation on how to install and configure this software.
1. Configure server settings: After installing caching software, you need to configure the server settings based on your preferences. This configuration depends upon the installed caching software.
1. Regularly Clear Cache: Even though caching improves server speed, over time the cache can get full and slow down the server performance. Therefore, regularly clearing the cache is important. Most caching software allows automatic setting up of cache clearing intervals.
1. Monitor Cache Performance: This step involves regularly monitoring the cache hit rate, cache miss rate, and other statistics to ensure that the caching is improving the server performance. This can usually be done with the help of various tools available.
1. Enable Browser Caching: When enabled, browser caching can store static files of your website (like images and CSS) on the visitor’s browser. When the visitor revisits the page, these files won’t need to be downloaded again, resulting in a quicker load time.
1. Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can help improve server performance by caching content at various nodes around the world. This way, the content can be delivered to users from the closest node, improving speed.
1. Use Opcode Cache: Opcode cache can improve PHP performance by storing precompiled script bytecode in memory, avoiding the need to load and parse scripts on each request.
1. SSD Hard Drives: These drives are incredibly quick and reliable, and can provide an immediate speed boost.
Remember, each VPS configuration is different so not all steps may be applicable to you. Always take a backup of your server before making any major changes.
