How to improve magento performance?

Answer 1

There are several methods that can be applied by one to enhance Magento performance and other PHP based CMS systems. These methods start from settings within Magento and goes all the way to server/hosting settings.

Here we will discuss few methods that are relatively the easiest ones and increase the Magento page-load speed significantly.

1)Reduce the size of file transfer between browser & web server

A useful approach to escalating magento-store performance significantly is by lessening the size of the file transfer between browser and web server.

Minify JavaScript and CSS:

Compressing the JavaScript and CSS can set aside many bytes of data and reduces downloading, parsing and execution time. There are many online tools are available to minify JavaScript and CSS such as jscompress.com, minifyjavascript.com csscompressor.com, minifycss.com.

Optimize Images by resizing them:

Select a suitable image file format and compress the images using image compressor to lessen the bandwidth between browser and web server. There are several image compression tools offered online such as; imageoptimizer.net, hjpeg-optimizer.com, JPEGMini.com etc

For More Information:
http://tech.pro/tutorial/2194/to-speed-up-your-magento-store-performance-optimization-tips

Answer 2

Install and Configure Varnish Cache

Turpentine – Varnish Cache is a Magento module to improve Magento compatibility with Varnish, a very fast caching reverse proxy.

Memcached

Magento has a built-in backend for handling its cache off to other caching engines, such as Memcached. Memcached is a memory caching system that holds data and database objects in RAM so that the system doesn’t have to make slow database calls to retrieve requested information.

You can add the following code in your app/etc/local.xml file.

<cache>
<backend><![CDATA[memcached]]></backend>
<fast_backend><![CDATA[memcached]]></fast_backend>
<slow_backend>database</slow_backend>
<fast_backend_options>
<servers>
<server>
<host>127.0.0.1</host>
<port>11211</port>
<persistent>1</persistent>
</server>
</servers>
</fast_backend_options>
<prefix><![CDATA[MAGE_]]></prefix>
</cache>
<![CDATA[MAGE_]]>

Source: http://magenticians.com/improve-magento-frontend-performance/