APC Cache to the Rescue
On the advice of Aaron Collegeman, I installed APC (Alternative PHP Cache) on my server and noticed an immediate performance boost.
Two days later, my MediaTemple DV was crashing — usually when I was in the WordPress admin. Turns out, APC’s default is 32Mb of memory.
Again following Aaron’s advice (and help), we doubled APC’s memory allocation to 64 Mb. APC is now holding steady around 60% of that new amount, and things are humming along.
Memory usage is up slightly for the server now, but CPU and Load are down. (Load spiked some when we increased the memory):
Still more performance work to do, according to Google Webmaster tools.
