2025-03-13 –, Pischa
Most people who run a Drupal website at a decent scale have probably heard of Varnish: Varnish is a reverse cache proxy you put in front of Drupal to accelerate your website.
It comes with some VCL code that might seem confusing at first, there are some Drupal modules you need to install and configure in order to invalidate the cache. But how does it really work?
In this session I’m going to show you how to install & configure Varnish, how to configure the VCL and what the code means. We’ll also be looking at the Drupal side of things and how to control the caching behavior from Drupal.
We’re also going to talk about more advanced topics and some extra Varnish features that will take your Drupal caching to the next level.
Topics that I'll cover:
- Introduction to Varnish
- How Varnish fits into Drupal
- Install & deployment options for Varnish (packages, Cloud, Docker, Kubernetes)
- Typical configuration options
- Leveraging HTTP caching headers through Drupal
- Introduction to the Varnish Configuration Language (VCL)
- A Drupal-specific VCL template
- Configuring Drupal to play nice with Varnish
- Advanced features
- Highlighting some of the challenges and how Varnish Software is addressing them
- What does the Drupal community expect from Varnish going forward?
As the Technical Evangelist at Varnish Software, Thijs Feryn focuses on web performance, software scalability, and content delivery. He demonstrates content-driven and technical messaging through presentations, videos, books, blog posts, social media posts, podcasts, and other media.
Thijs is a published author and wrote Getting Started with Varnish Cache and Varnish 6 by Example. As a public speaker, he has a track record of over 360 presentations in 25 different countries, where he is often praised for his energetic and engaging presentation style.
As an evangelist, Thijs is also active in many open-source communities, most notably the Varnish and PHP community. He has contributed to various communities for over 15 years both technically and as an organizer and facilitator.
Prior to joining Varnish Software, Thijs Feryn spent 15 years in the web hosting industry, tackling web performance and scalability issues on a daily basis and evangelizing these topics.
For more information about Thijs’ past & upcoming presentations, please visit https://feryn.eu/speaking.