Capacity Planning
Capacity Planning |
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Just as the microsoft.com team constantly reviews its hardware capacity to ensure quick response for the user, it also studies the way it configures its servers to manage content. Currently, the content is updated eight times a day, with 5 to 7 percent of the total content changing each day. Because each of the microsoft.com Web servers contains a complete copy of the site’s content, each set of changes has to be replicated to every server. The team is now using Network Load Balancing to accomplish this.
Groups producing content for microsoft.com want to use the latest Web publishing features to make their content more eye-catching and interesting to users. The result is a tug-of-war between content providers, who want users to have the richest experience possible, and the team running the Web site, which wants to increase download speeds and the site’s capacity. The site currently has a size limit of 100 KB per page, including graphics, but preferably each page should be smaller than 60 KB. The bottom line is that content needs to strike a balance between being visually interesting and being as small as possible in order to improve download performance.
The amount of content a site delivers does not necessarily indicate user satisfaction. To monitor the user download experience, the microsoft.com team periodically tests the access, search, and download times for specific pages, using 28.8 Kbps modems stationed in various U.S. cities. The test that was performed in January of 1997, showed that users averaged 50 seconds per task. A more recent test of download times indicated a 20second improvement to 30 seconds per task, thanks in part to the new network design.