Performance Improvement of Sharepoint Sites

Anyone who is concerned with managing Sharepoint server/sites is well aware that performance management is major concern for Site administrators or managers. This is basically because all the data including the pages in sharepoint server is rendered from the database itself. Because of this each time a request is made more load on the system is incurred as the request is furnished by the database.
There are various suggestions from the Microsoft Sharepoint team. I have customized and used few which worked for me based on the demands of my current implementation and scope of sharepoint 2007.
Rather than going in much details of each workarounds I would like to present them in a simple and straightforward manner so that it becomes easier for all types of audiences to understand.

1. Reducing the size of the pages - This helps in reducing the load time of the pages especially when they are accessed over the Internet. This will involve working with the Master Pages.
2. Improving the Farm Architecture - Increasing the number of servers; web front servers, application servers and database servers for proper request response. Load balancing the web front servers in case when the more numbers of concurrent users in the site.
3. HTTP GZip Compression - Enabling the static (and dynamic as applicable) compression of the page sharepoint site pages using IIS HTTP GZip compression. This works like zipping of your usual office files. It compresses the files before getting released from the server and is then uncompressed at the users end so the response time of the pages becomes faster. You need to analyze the impact of CPU utilization in the concerned servers.
4. Site Output Caching Strategy - Decide and enable site level output cache which enables the repeated content of the of the pages from being accessed from the server.
5. Monitoring CPU and Server Logs and User Analytics - Properly managing the server by checking the sharepoint logs, event logs to fix the issues and avoid performance hiccups to the users will ensure proper functioning of the server.

After employing all these measures we experienced a considerable impact on the performance of the portal. The render time, response time and average latency reduced considerably.

I hope when you combine the above with proper backup strategy to backup you site configurations and valuable data timely you will be in a safer position.