Appendix A -- A Blueprint for Building Web Sites Using the Microsoft Windows DNA Platform

Executive Summary

Businesses are rapidly moving to a standard Web-based computing model characterized by loosely connected tiers of replicated, task-focused systems. A large percentage of business Web sites—collections of servers, applications, and data that offer online services—are built using the Microsoft Windows DNA platform today as the basis for this computing model. This document defines the architecture for building Windows DNA sites. Readers can leverage this information to help design and build Windows DNA-based sites today.

This document focuses on the use of Microsoft technologies, in particular the Windows DNA platform, to build the infrastructure for a scalable, available, secure, and manageable site in the most cost-effective and time-efficient way possible. It stresses keeping operations and application design of a Web site simple and flexible and emphasizes how a dot-com can successfully deploy and operate a site with the necessary effective scalability, availability, security, and manageability. There is less emphasis on the currently well-documented tools and development methodologies for building a Web application component. It also examines, from the macro level, the advantages of a Microsoft Windows DNA solution (using Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 and/or Microsoft Windows 2000), and drills down to define how to set up each tier of the site architecture using Microsoft products. Finally, it looks at Web site management using Microsoft tools and technologies.

Although intended as an overview, this document examines an example Web site that uses a successfully deployed architecture, which can serve as a model for sites built using the Windows DNA platform. This document does not address (other than when relevant to scalability, availability, security, and manageability) topics such as application design, development tools, or database design; however, it does provide pointers to appropriate documents covering these areas.

The "Architecture Overview" section introduces a number of architectural concepts that are important for large Web sites. In the section "An Example Site," we describe a representative site and explain the infrastructure and various tiers used. The remaining sections—"Scalability," "Availability," "Security," and "Management and Operations"—discuss the four key attributes of a site and use the example site to illustrate these issues. References to relevant documents appear throughout the document.