Simple Optimizing and Monitoring Laravel Application Performance Through Memory Management and System Load
Performance optimization is a key factor in ensuring a positive user experience in web applications. In the Laravel environment, PHP offers tools for monitoring and optimizing memory usage and system load. The techniques presented here are particularly useful when you don’t have access to more advanced monitoring and scalability decision-making tools, such as New Relic for performance monitoring or Kubernetes for automated scaling based on system load and other metrics.
Understanding sys_getloadavg() for Task Scheduling
sys_getloadavg() is a PHP function that returns an array with three values representing the average system load over the last 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes. These values indicate the average number of processes in the run queue. For a single-processor system, a value below 1.0 means the system is not overloaded.
Leveraging this function allows for intelligent background task scheduling in Laravel, ensuring tasks that require heavy processing are initiated when the system load is low:
$schedule->call(function () {
$load = sys_getloadavg();
if ($load[0] < 1.0) { // Checking the average load of the last minute
ProcessHeavyReportsJob::dispatch();
}
})->hourly();