Server Hardware

Behind the friendly face of many websites is a sophisticated system of servers, hardware and software. Servers are the backbone of any good website. A server is a computer on “steroids” with a very fast permanent connection to the Internet and subsystems that protect against power outages, hackers, and system crashes. (The combination of hardware, operating system, and server software constitute a “server.”)

The raw performance of web servers, application servers, HTTP servers, and database servers is the key to customer satisfaction and future scalability. Slow response times are frustrating to customers and can impact the flow of data through the transaction-processing pipeline. This affects other components of your back office, including network connections and, in the end, reflects negatively on your bottom line. Nevertheless, for e-commerce sites that deal with thousands of customers at any given moment while also dispensing hundreds of thousands of unique page views per day, achieving peak performance and allowing for future growth is a somewhat mysterious art.

Unless you have a specific reason for running your own servers, outsource to a web-hosting service. You can do this through a co-location arrangement, an enterprise contract (leasing servers, applications and technical service), or rental of server space (virtual hosting). (See Chapter 14 for a complete discussion on hosting solutions.) Whether hosting the site yourself or outsourcing to a hosting company, it is advisable to learn about the necessary hardware requirements.

Let’s begin by considering what is needed to set-up a small website that doesn’t use intensive graphics and is destined to serve a limited number of simultaneous visitors.