Alex Sims, Solutions Architect & Sr. Software Engineer at James and James Fulfilment, talks about their journey to 80ms response SLO with PHP & React.

Alex shares how they optimised API performance, specifically highlighting improvements made by altering interactions with Amazon S3 and Redis. Key points include the transition from synchronous to asynchronous S3 processes, the impact of Amazon's SLO on write speed, and the significant runtime reduction achieved through JIT compilation in PHP 8. 

We conclude with insights into decision-making in technology architecture, emphasising the balance between choosing cutting-edge technology and the existing skill set of the team.

🎬 View the video part of this episode at 80ms response SLO with PHP & React

🎁 Access the audio & video as a single conversation at makeitwork.gerhard.io

EPISODE CHAPTERS

• (00:00 ) - Introduction


• (00:50 ) - 2023: A Year of Productive Chaos at James & James


• (02:43 ) - Alex's Journey throughout our Conversations


• (03:33 ) - What does James & James do?


• (04:29 ) - What does Alex do at James & James?


• (05:33 ) - Technical Challenges in 2023


• (06:37 ) - Who is James?


• (08:21 ) - Why do you - Alex - do what you do?


• (10:52 ) - 2023 Highlights


• (16:22 ) - Where does Kubernetes fit?


• (18:03 ) - LESSON 1: Be aware of the different EC2 node type behaviour


• (21:05 ) - instances.vantage.sh


• (22:46 ) - LESSON 2: Understand the time cost of AWS S3 writes


• (24:19 ) - LESSON 3: Connecting to Redis is expensive


• (25:58 ) - Be careful when mixing persistent connections and transactions in Redis


• (26:41 ) - LESSON 4: Always check for SELECT *


• (28:15 ) - Lessons recap


• (29:35 ) - OODA


• (30:24 ) - SCREEN SHARING


• (31:02 ) - Wrap-up


• (35:58 ) - Planning for the next conversation