Network Computingwww.networkcomputing.com

Building E-Commerce

December 15, 1998

Again, the trick with server selection, both hardware and software, is planning and testing. Many IT managers think that by dropping a fast Pentium II Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) machine onto a 100-Mbps segment, theyíll get great performance. Locally that might be true, but what about outside your network environments? You can have all the server muscle you want, but if your extranet users or potential cyber patrons are only using low-end Pentiums with dial-up connections, theyíre still going to get slow performance.

For storefront servers, youíve got to plan for the worst as far as client performance. Unfortunately that means planning for both fast and slow Internet visitors. Mostly, you canít compensate for this in hardware. Plan to implement a fast server to keep your more muscled clients happy. Then run a low-bandwidth version of the software for slower connections.

Extranet servers will have more specific client data available, because youíll probably know more about who will be using them. Call your potential partners and ask for their client statistics if you donít. What is the average client hardware platform, network connection, WAN connection? Do they have potential traffic statistics? Combine this knowledge with what your developers are planning and youíll have a accurate idea of what level of server performance youíll require. Again, to be safe, youíll need to employ a modeling tool.

Akin to Ganymedeís Chariot, advanced modeling tools let you take this paradigm a bit further. Where Chariot will let you measure what will happen to existing network infrastructures once they encounter specific types and loads of application traffic, tools like Internet Monitor from Optimal Networks will let you model how specific server machines and even individual applications will react. Sitting down with your development team and coming up with accurate ìwhat-ifî scenarios will not only make your server selection process easier, it will make the development process shorter as well.