Speed difference 5.3 to 5.4 upgrade vs. fresh 5.4

Does it matter speed wise if upgrade a 5.3 to 5.4 or start with fresh 5.4?

Markus

If its a clean install of 5.3 without much content or customizations.  

I would do a fresh install of 5.4.

@Telerik

Can you advice? I don't see any speed improvmentes in 5.4 (was fast on 5.3 already) that's why I am asking. Screencast is taken on same server. Both app_pool recycled. Front-end visited and then the backend opened.

http://www.marktold.com/screencast/sf_5_3_vs_5_4_speedcomparison.swf

Markus

I think we are many who are eagerly awaiting the answer! The marketing department is maybe on winter vacation ...

Hi,

The 5.4 cold start backend performance is comparable to a warm 5.3 backend where all the pages and widget designers have been opened at least once and are cached.  This will be most noticeable during development when you are running the site from the Visual Studio dev server and you need to make frequent restarts. A normal user working on the content managed will most likely experience only a slight speed improvement if they are used to working with the templates already compiled. The developers, on the other hand, should be the ones to benefit from the precompiled templates the most.

Regards,
Atanas Valchev
the Telerik team

@Antanas

QUOTE

A normal user working on the content managed will most likely experience only a slight speed improvement if they are used to working with the templates already compiled

UNQUOTE

Did you check that with your marketing? Beacause this sound like 5.4 is not faster then 5.3 at all! 

Markus

Hi Atanas

It is bad news.
It is our customers who demand speed in the administration. And we must live by our customers' satisfaction!
So I thought that your Marketing relate to real life next time. Because customers have once again been disappointed. They do not expect a slow CMS neither in the administration or in front!

I am not able to get any faster backend with 5.4 and am not sure if I am still doing something wrong or as Antanas is hinting this speed improvements might only be while in production.

Question: Has anyone noticed backend speed improvements in 5.4 over 5.3 in production envirement.

Glad to get some real working project feedback.

Markus

PS: Again - I don't really have to much a speed issue with 5.3 just was hopping for lightning fast on first use :-)

@anyone

Question: Has anyone noticed backend speed improvements in 5.4 over 5.3 in production envirement.

Markus

Nobody?

Hi Markus,

Well, in this particular case, it's not the marketing team that we (the development team) should ask or sync to :) Actually, we are on big team here... but that's another story. Let me answer your question.

5.4 is indeed faster than 5.3. It's because of the features/fixes that 5.4 has, which are not presented in the 5.3 system. If you upgrade 5.3 to 5.4, well the system will preserve your 5.3 settings to an great extent, so you will basically not use all of the new improvements. Have you tried to enable all back-end CDNs for example? Have you measured the speed in this case? Furthermore, there are performance fixes that need some load so that it can be seen. When talking to performance, we even count the build time. With some internal stats (that I unfortunately cannot publish), we saved up to 6 developers/month-time, just of reducing build times for the team, when working with projects in 5.4. compared to 5.3. I can continue with features as to Forums, but have you checked the Forums performance with 5.4?

Regards,
Georgi
the Telerik team

Dear Georgi

Thank's for taking the time to answer.

Sorry I have no sites with much load and don't build to much so save me big time :-) From what I read and still read I was expecting 5.4 to load backend pages faster no mather how much load there is.

QUOTE
If you upgrade 5.3 to 5.4, well the system will preserve your 5.3 settings to an great extent, so you will basically not use all of the new improvements
UNQUOTE

So what can I do to fix this! Because this would mean every site I did in the past would not get full 5.4 speed :-(

Markus

@Georgi

Should I open a ticket to get my 5.3 to 5.4 updated site fixed so it will benefit from all the new 5.4 features speed improvments.

Markus

PS: So far speed only seems to be improved when site is cold and there seems to be no speed improvments on first backend use at all.

5.3 speed was good enough for me and I would have been suprised to see 300% speed improvments anyhow.

@Mark

Thanks for being on the cutting edge of updates when they come out and by being so thorough in your testing.  You are really saving me time when I can finally upgrade to the newer versions of Sitefinity as we are always an upgrade or 2 behind.  Just wanted to let you know that your efforts are appreciated from the quiet majority that are on these forums.  Keep it up so that when it comes to upgrading the rest of us can learn from Sitefinity's growing pains