Due to the fact it is on my task list, I have been pondering the decision points for deploying a new web based application and supporting infrastructure. At a first stab there must be 400 questions which may be in the mix. The trick is to work out which ones are Critical to success, which ones have no impact, which ones can be linked and therefore become a single decision with many results. Does the implementation mean some of these decisions can be made after Go live (VMware lets you add extra resource to a guest operating system)
How much input can the business customer provide?
How much input can the application developer provider?
What assumptions can you make?
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Been working on a small probelm with major web site with few collegues
The site uses tomcat and cocoon to generate HTML using XSLT from XML based content. However the XSLT in cocoon is VERY CPU intensive, and recent increase in web traffic (cause by some very effective marketing campaigns) to the web site has caused the platform to become unstable
Enter My 8 legged friend, SQUID
Squid has a very small binary foot print (10Meg), a small memory footprint (12Meg and does not interfear with windows in any great way. When configured to sit in front of the IIS web server, tests on a POC server increased the throughput of rendered HTML from 12 requests per second taking almost 4 seconds to first byte, to a whoping 300 requests per second and 400mS to first byte.
Wow, now to fine tune the install and sort out on the Live platform
Just been pondering the internet and downloads etc and this news item sprung to mind www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/22/burnham_dcms_filesharing/ in which the government are threatening to put legislation so that ISPs stop their customers taking part in illegal downloads. This is like asking the police to stop every drink driver by stopping every vehicle on a busy motorway and breath testing every driver and all the passengers just to be sure.
The ISPs cant even do a decent job of stopping SPAM either from or to their networks, what chance to they stand of stopping peer2peer activities.
