- The Emergence of Web Applications
- Basic Definitions
- The Nature of the Web and Its Challenges
- Performance and Scalability
- Performance
- Scalability
- The Internet Medium
- Wide Audience
- Interactive
- Dynamic
- Always On
- Integrated
- Lack of Complete Control
- Measuring Performance and Scalability
- Measuring Performance
- Beyond Benchmarking
- Measuring Scalability
- Throughput and Price/Performance
- Scalability and Performance Hints
- Think End-to-End
- Scalability Doesn't Equal Performance
- Summary
Think End-to-End
If nothing else, this chapter should have made clear that scalability and performance are end-to-end challenges. Don't just focus on the server; consider client and network issues as well. Spending all your time optimizing your server and database is not going to help if one part of your solution doesn't scale. You will always be hampered by your weakest link, so spend more time thinking about all of the parts involved in an application session, not just the ones you suspect or the ones you read articles about. Keep an open mind: While many applications face similar dilemmas, not all have the same clients, the same growth rate, or the same 24x7 demands.