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Web 2.0 is Here. Is Your Web Infrastructure Ready?Executive SummaryThe shift from static business-to-consumer (B2C) Web sites to interactive B2C Web sites—essentially the evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0—has paved the way for increased interactivity between businesses and consumers. Those businesses that can deliver on the promise of a more engaging, meaningful, and useful experience have the opportunity to strengthen their consumers’ loyalty to the brand. However, without being able to rapidly, reliably, and securely deliver rich interactive content, the benefits afforded by this new level of interactivity will go unrealized.Many enterprises have long relied upon content delivery networks (CDNs) to help ensure the scalability, performance, and availability of their static Web sites. Unfortunately, traditional CDNs have not evolved to meet the delivery challenges posed by today’s sophisticated interactive content. This white paper outlines today’s B2C Web site trends and explains the challenges associated with dynamic content—whether dynamically generated or the result of personalization techniques. The paper also introduces the requirements for the speedy, reliable, scalable, and secure delivery of dynamic content, so that enterprises can maximize the value of their advanced, feature-rich Web sites. The Evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0As companies increasingly rely upon their Web sites to contribute to top-line revenues and maintain brand loyalty, they are finding that sophisticated site functionality and fresh Web site content are critical to maintaining consumer interest and encouraging return visits. Fortunately, today’s Web site technologies support these objectives. For example, in an April 2006 eMarketer survey, 27% of U.S. online retailers said they plan to implement interactive tools and 41% intend to use personalization on their sites.1A brief look at the evolution of the delivery of content to distributed users provides insight into the reasons that today’s Web sites offer a new level of interaction between businesses and consumers. In the 1980s, enterprises relied upon the client/server model to deliver rich content to users. A fat-client GUI played a key role in the consumption of this content. While successful in its own right, this model required a significant investment in administration and infrastructure maintenance. With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, organizations could deliver content to a broader audience without these time-consuming and costly maintenance requirements. While the Web interface essentially served as a thin client, the ability to deliver rich content was still limited by Web technologies, Web browser functionality, and end user access speeds. The result is that yesterday’s Web sites were mainly composed of static content that rarely changed—each site visitor was largely a passive consumer looking for information. A closer look at the Yahoo! site offers insight into the evolution of Web content. The original home page, launched in 1994, was little more than a directory listing of hyperlinks. Web visitors would click on the links and read the page content—that was the extent of their online experience. Today’s Web sites, comprising a mix of static and dynamic content, are more dynamic and richer in nature, allowing site visitors to increasingly interact with site content, as evidenced by Yahoo!’s newest design, unveiled in May 2006. The directory listing is now one of multiple tabs at the top of the page. In addition to browsing everything from news to video, users have access to localized and personalized services such as Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Movies. Rich Internet Applications Bridge the GapA new generation of Web applications, called Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)—created using sophisticated technology such as Macromedia Flash, Flex, and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) – enables rich content to be delivered to a far-reaching audience of consumers. According to the Patricia Seybold Group, RIAs combine the usable and desirable rich interfaces that many are accustomed to on the desktop with the reach of a distributed Web application2. This development, along with burgeoning broadband adoption (68 percent of U.S. households now enjoy broadband access3) has forever transformed the Web and interactions between businesses and consumers.Static vs. Dynamic Content
This richer content is increasingly dynamic in nature, enabling an unprecedented level of interactivity and personalization. In real time, any consumer-specific information entered into these applications is passed back to the Web infrastructure to enable interaction, further personalization, and compelling marketing offers. For instance, consumers can be presented with geographic- and demographic-specific content, content that is tailored to preferences they indicate, surveys and contests, and constantly updated content such as stock quotes, sales promotions, and news feeds, to name a few. The Technology Behind Web 2.0Whether these applications are developed using Macromedia Flex, Macromedia Flash, or AJAX, they share common characteristics: when site visitors first load their browsers, an advanced client-side Internet application or engine is also downloaded. As the visitor interacts with the Web site, the application or engine communicates with the databases and application servers at the back end Web infrastructure to retrieve small bits of content that are inserted into the page. One example of an AJAX-based application is Google Maps (other AJAX-based Web 2.0 applications include Flickr and Gmail.) Upon first visiting the Google Maps site, the user experiences a delay as the map loads. Each subsequent click on or dragging of the map results in a call back to the application at the data center to update the map. Examples of Macromedia Flex applications appear on the Ofoto and Red Bull USA sites. Ofoto’s Flex application allows site visitors to create and customize their own photo albums online. With a goal of offering a great user experience, Ofoto provides its customers with a rich client application enabling them to create an 80-page book on a single screen. This includes rearranging page layout, and dragging, dropping, rotating, and resizing photos. Red Bull’s dynamic rich-media site uses a Macromedia Flash front-end to present engaging and interactive content in a way that mirrors the excitement and energy of the Red Bull brand.Why Today’s Sites Fail to DeliverWhile dynamically generated content offers an unprecedented opportunity to engage with consumers, it also presents businesses with a new challenge: the richer content takes longer to load in a Web page. By its very nature, dynamic content is harder—and in some cases, impossible—to cache. As site traffic increases, generating pages on-the-fly for thousands of consumers simultaneously can lead to increased delays—and even failures—in delivering content.Infrastructure Under PressureA rich interactive application itself is a download that must be delivered by the Web infrastructure. While most companies point to the small file size associated with the subsequent data calls, the back-and-forth interactions between the consumer and the Web infrastructure are themselves subject to the performance and reliability vagaries of the Internet. For instance, while AJAX reduces the delay in the interaction between the browser and the display of a page when new data is retrieved from a Web server, an AJAX implementation suffers from the same issues that afflict traditional Web application implementations using browsers as their user interface.These issues include performance concerns around scripts within the Web browser, and latency/bandwidth issues between the browser and server. For example, AJAX applications require a number of TCP connections to potentially be open at any one time, and affect server loads and bandwidth requirements due to continuous content refreshes. Whether the content is delivered via dynamic AJAX, XML, Macromedia Flex, or some other sophisticated design or programming language, delivery of this content and applications places greater stress on the Web infrastructure. Furthermore, most enterprises host their application servers locally, even though their consumer base is distributed nationally or even internationally. Unfortunately, due to Internet problems outside of the control of a centrally hosted Web site, the consumer may not be able to access an application or may experience poor performance. These problems tend to be exacerbated when a large number of consumers attempt to access the application simultaneously. Consumers Are DemandingOn the consumer side, the main concern is the quality of user experience and they expect a high-performing and reliable Web site. While many businesses may believe they are effectively managing their Web sites and meeting consumers’ needs, in a 2005 survey of 600 leading Internet brand sites across multiple industries, Forrester Research analysts reported they were frequently hampered by sites that were frustratingly slow, prone to bizarre errors, or inexplicably offline. Poor performance or an unavailable site or application—whether the cause of a Web attack or a Web site’s inability to efficiently serve rich, dynamic content to distributed consumers – is unacceptable and can negatively impact brand perception and revenues. In an April 2006 survey of 1,058 consumers, Jupiter Research and Ipsos-Insight found that poorly performing sites suffer damaged reputations. In the same Jupiter Research/Ipsos-Insight research, the results show that—next to price and shipping issues—poor site performance leads to dissatisfied shoppers and site abandonment. 64% of respondents said they would be less likely to return to a site that performed inadequately and 62% said they would likely not purchase again from the company online.Traditional CDNs Fall ShortTo ensure customer loyalty and to capitalize on all revenue-generating opportunities, businesses must deliver a high-quality and reliable consumer experience without fail. In fact, consumers have come to expect this after so many years of being served high-performing static content via content delivery networks (CDNs). While many of today’s leading businesses rely upon traditional CDNs to help them ensure fast and reliable delivery of their Web images and text, these CDNs have not evolved to support rich interactive content. One key factor is the restricted geographic distribution and size of these networks—this limitation prevents CDNs from routing traffic efficiently around Internet congestion. Just as important, traditional CDNs have not developed the advanced technology needed to cache and accelerate dynamic content. Without these capabilities, traditional CDNs are unable to address the unique business requirements of transactional and highly interactive Web 2.0 sites.Key Considerations When Serving Dynamic ContentBusinesses familiar with CDNs are often under the impression that dynamic content is uncacheable. While this is true of some types or aspects of dynamic content, it is not true for all dynamic content. For instance, the output caching generated by databases and application servers is cacheable, as are search results and product catalog pages (assuming that no real-time inventory checks are occurring), to name a few. As long as the page output is the same for every site visitor (or for groups of visitors with a unique identifier, such as a cookie value, accompanying their requests), even dynamically generated content can be cached. In order to satisfy consumer demands and business requirements for rich, interactive content, businesses must seek a solution that helps them address the unique challenges associated with the delivery of dynamic content. At a minimum, the solution must support the following:
Courtesy: http://www.akamai.com/
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