Internet Information Services (IIS) 6 Resource Kit

Managing Network Activity

Creating and maintaining a Web site involves using hardware, software, and network bandwidth to manage network traffic. Servers send out pages in response to requests. In order to issue a request, a browser first establishes a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection with the server and then sends the request through the connection. Network traffic, as the term applies to Web servers, is the mixture of incoming requests and outgoing responses.

Network traffic typically occurs in bursts and clumps that are only partly predictable. For example, many intranet sites have activity peaks at the beginning and end of the day, and around lunchtime. However, the exact size of these peaks varies from day to day, and the actual ...