Help for weary Webmasters

Wouldn't you rather find out about a broken link on your company's Web site on your own than from an angry boss or online customer? And wouldn't it be great to know when you're in danger of running out of disk space? Or to have some warning that you need to restart a failing Web server?

Any problem that threatens to interrupt or slow down Web service is cause for alarm. Fortunately, software tools that can sound the alarms are starting to appear. These tools perform several functions, which can be divided into two main areas: active site monitoring and content management.

Active site monitoring covers server configuration and availability, as well as traffic management, for starters. Content management involves site mapping, identifying orphan pages, and checking and repairing broken site links.

Most products available today deliver a mix of these features, combining site monitoring and content management features. Some functions, such as load balancing, are tough to find in the multifunction products we looked at; others are fairly standard. Link checking, for example, is common to 18 of the 20 products in our online Buyer's Guide chart. Neither WebSpective 2.1 from WebSpective Software (which changed its name from Atreve Software late last month) nor Xpertrak/Net 2.5 from TransOmega perform pure link checking. However, both can unearth broken links indirectly through content distribution checks and HTML page monitoring, respectively.

Another standard function is reporting. Only BMC Software's Patrol Knowledge Module for Secured Servers doesn't include a selection of predefined reports, though it does display client usage statistics in real time. And all but four products include filters to customize reports.

We start to see some differentiation in the products' alerting features, which play a critical role in keeping you one step ahead of dissatisfied users. If certain thresholds are reached or certain events occur, most products can send alerts by multiple means, such as pager, e-mail, SNMP, server console, or writing to a log file. However, six products in our chart fail to include any alerting mechanism.

Stay in control

Webmasters need to be able to control Web servers and applications from a centralized location, to perform tasks such as adding and removing hosts, deactivating Web servers for maintenance, and viewing the status of all site components, for example. The more robust tools allow you to apply changes to individual servers or entire Web applications.

You should expect an active site monitoring tool to provide real-time server monitoring and failure detection and be able to restart a failed server. For a cut above the rest, look for those few products that can distribute traffic around a broken server link and/or a failed server. Only WebSpective and WebManage Technologies' SiteMARC do both. WindDance Networks' WebChallenger (which was just renamed JetStream) will distribute traffic around a failed server but not around a broken server link.

If you're in the market for a strong content management application, consider products that can do more than just pinpoint broken links or access problems. Some products allow you to edit and repair broken links from within the application; others allow you to search for and replace one or more incorrect links on all pages at once. Two products in our chart offer all of the above link functions: Coast Software's WebMaster 3.0 and Greyscale Systems' SiteMan Website Manager.

Mapping features can help you identify key usage patterns for improving Web site effectiveness. For example, you can find the most traversed path through your site, or ask to see a specific user's path. Typically, products support one or more ways to view lists of files, such as by path, filename, title, author, size or creation date. The creation date option is important if you need to be able to compare maps as your site changes. Also be aware that not all site-monitoring products can map local and remote Web servers.

As Web sites grow in complexity, so do the demands users place on them. Visitors expect faster response times and greater availability. One way to improve service is to provide dynamic, intelligent load balancing across distributed Web servers. If you decide to go this route, pay special attention to load-balancing algorithms. Do they only factor in the availability of the Web servers? Or, do they look at the big picture, taking into account the complete application, including back-end databases and pages, as WebSpective and SiteMARC do?

Managing Web content is no small task when you have multiple applications running across mirrored servers throughout a geographically dispersed Web site. In this scenario, content distribution is a critical part of Web site management. You need to make sure you have control over how, when and where content is distributed. You will also want to find tools that can automate synchronous and secure updates. The product also should ensure that users always have access to appropriate content, even when the Web server they are connecting to is being updated.

Analysis and reporting

Web management software should play a proactive role in server and application performance management. This effort involves monitoring statistics regarding the load and performance of Web applications, Web servers, host machines and network interfaces.

A comprehensive tool will collect real-time and historical information and display it in administrator-configurable graphs. You may want an application that centralizes the data in a relational database for flexible reporting and analysis. Or you may choose an application that simply reads and analyzes the data from the existing log file.

Whichever route you take, you want a tool that lets you perform historical trend analyses and capacity planning and then generate meaningful reports. Look for as much customization as possible, such as the ability to use third-party reporting tools and to manipulate report layouts.

You may not find one tool that will do everything you want, just as one brand of Web server or operating system might not suffice for your particular environment. It's all right to mix and match, as long as you cover all the bases.

RELATED LINKS Contact Senior Editor Deni Connor

Tips from the Microsoft Webmasters
How they built microsoft.com. Network World Fusion, 5/4/98.

Review: Log analysis tools
net.Analysis and Hit List are tops at quickly and easily giving you the lowdown on intranet and extranet visitors. IntraNet, 8/24/98.

Load-balancing algorithms
Network World, 9/22/98.

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