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Web Site Management Tools Help Get Content Online And Keep Users In Line

By David Daly Your corporate Web site has grown--as have the number of links from there to pages created by your users. Fortunately, the tools to manage it all have kept up as well.New products are available to help you manage your Web site, users and their documents. They not only check links or generate HTML, they also let contributors develop content that fits in with the rest of the site. These products let administrators control which documents are published, as well as who can access or manipulate them. In addition, Web management tools come with much-in-demand features, such as syntax checking and dynamic content support.

To view the Report card.
In N etwork Computing's lab at Syracuse University, we tested three high-end Web management product sets that can help a team of contributors develop and maintain a professional-looking Web site. We tested Inso Corp.'s DynaBase Dynamic Publishing System 2.0.1, Lotus Development Corp.'s Lotus Domino 4.5 including Domino.Action, and Netscape Communications Corp.'s Netscape Enterprise Server Pro 3.0.

We also invited Arachnid Software's WebPower and Aziza's Enterprise Web Manager to participate, but the vendors declined, claiming their products were not ready. (This marks the second consecutive year Arachnid WebPower wasn't ready.)

Last year, we focused our testing on products that simply helped you publish a Web site (see "Management Applications: Right Tool for the Right Job," www.NetworkComputing. com/714/714rev1.html). These products offered a range of features, from dynamic content support to link checking. This year, we focused our testing on team development, since building an interesting and useful We b site requires the dedication of several people. We looked for products that packed the features of last year's entries into one offering, plus let multiple users securely use it.

Real-World Site Test In the lab, we loaded a real-world Web site into the products and created multiple users who demanded access control. Contributors added content to their own areas, while publishers and editors revised documents before making them available to the public. To test access control, all of these users intentionally tried to invade other users' areas.

When all was said and done, DynaBase won top honors, as it did last year. It provides the best document management and dynamic development capabilities of any of the products we tested. Netscape Enterprise Server Pro had a solid all-around showing and was considerably less expensive than DynaBase, while Lotus Domino Server impressed us with its unmatched access control.

Inso Corp. DynaBase Dynamic Publishing System 2.0.1
DynaBase's dynamic content support was better than the competition's, especially when it came to support for scripts triggered on HTML tags and ease of use. It stands out on the basis of its HTML tools and document-control system. However, one of DynaBase's major drawbacks is its hefty price: $47,000. Both Netscape Enterprise Server and Lotus Domino are considerably less expensive, each coming in at less than $2,000. Also, DynaBase lacks fine-grained access control and cannot prevent users from accessing areas they shouldn't.

DynaBase is comprised of two parts: the application server and the client program. The application server plugs into your Web server through Microsoft's Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) or Netscape's NSAPI, and processes requests for URLs. Multiple clients can then access any application server on your netwo rk. The application server runs on either Windows NT or Solaris; the client runs only on Windows. Netscape and Lotus are more flexible, because they run on most platforms for both the client and server.

To download an Adobe Acrobat .pdf format version of the Web Site Management Software features charts, click here.