How we did it
 
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| Slow speed kills | Add some PEP to your Web site | Review: Use only as directed | Interactive Buyer's Guide | The promise of FineGround | Scorecard and NetResults |
For the NT caching products test, we used a dual-Pentium III 933-MHz server with 1G byte of RAM and an 18G-byte SCSI disk drive running Windows 2000 Server Professional with SR1 running Internet Information Server 5.0. The Linux products used the same hardware configuration, running RedHat 6.2 and Apache 1.3.19 as the Web server.
Testing was performed using test suites written in ColdFusion 4.5, Active Server Pages 3.0 and Perl 5. A battery of four test files with varying levels of dynamic content was used during testing, along with two corporate sites written in ASP and ColdFusion. Load testing was performed, simulating 10, 20, 100, 500 and 1,000 users hitting the sites. Performance results were examined both from recorded results and from the products themselves when internal monitoring tools were provided.
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Powell is the president of PINT, a San Diego Web services firm, and the author of numerous books on Web development practices. He can be reached at tpowell@pint.com. The author wishes to thank Reuben Poon, Dave Andrews and Mark Johnston of PINT, who helped design the test cases and environment for these products.
Powell is also a member of the Network World Global Test Alliance, a cooperative of the premier reviewers in the network industry, each bringing to bear years of practical experience on every review. For more Test Alliance information, including what it takes to become a member, go to www.nwfusion.com/alliance.
Slow speed kills
Boost your Web site performance with the five Cs: caching, compression, CPU optimization, CDNs and client software.
Add some PEP to your Web site
Performance-enhancing proxies can accelerate content delivery.
Review: Use only as directed
Tread carefully before rolling out dynamic content caching products.
Interactive Buyer's Guide
Includes more than 90 entries on products that can speed up your site, everything from caching hardware and software to SSL off-loaders.
The promise of FineGround
We decided to cover the Condenser separately because it takes a radically different approach to content acceleration than the other products discussed.
Scorecard and NetResults
Check out how these dynamic content caching products scored in our tests.
