cms with remote database: performance issues

my problem's a bit complicated. basically i created a client/server CMS architecture that worked very well for a while. now that there are more customers, it's getting very slow and i don't really know how to fix it.

let me explain you the current architecture: i've developed a content management system to serve various different customers. there's a cms server where each customer has an account to manage the content of his or her website. all customers work on the same interface and store the content in the same database on the cms server. so, for every new customer, i just have to open up a new account on the cms server and they can sta开发者_开发知识库rt managing their content.

to display that content, i have to create a customized website for each customer. that website frontend can run on one of my servers or the customer can host it himself. this frontend now has to connect to the cms server to fetch the content.

on the cms server, there's a php file called "share.php". it allows you to add some parameters such as 'content_ID' to specify the content. the php file then displays that content in JSON format. on the frontend, i use file_get_contents("{cms_server}/share.php?content_ID=34"); to retrieve the data from the cms server.

as i said, it worked very well for some time when there were few customers using that system. now however a page load lasts at least a few seconds and it's getting worse.

do i just need to increase performance on the cms server or does the concept of retrieving data with file_get_contents(); just suck big time? :D

i appreciate your recommendations of how to fix that problem. cheers.

Probably you need to look at your database: do you need to add indexes? Are you making redundant calls? Are you making many small SELECTs which could be made into one big one? And so forth.