Web Performance Tuning

Audience for This Book

Web Performance Tuning will be of interest to anyone responsible for a web site, from the person running a personal site off a Linux PC at home up to large corporate sites with multiple enterprise-class servers and redundant Internet connections. The book assumes you are familiar with the fundamentals of setting up a web site and getting connected to the Internet. If you need advice on setting up a web site, see Apache: The Definitive Guide, by Ben Laurie and Peter Laurie (O’Reilly & Associates). If you need advice on how to get connected to the Internet, see Getting Connected, by Kevin Dowd (O’Reilly & Associates).

This is a book of practical advice on the configuration and application-level programming of commodity components, not a book for operating system programmers, compiler writers, or chip designers. In other words, the book goes over what you can change right now from the system administration and application level.

To some degree, you are at the mercy of the market to supply you with good building blocks. Since the performance of a web site is a function not only of the tuning parameters and options but also of the raw hardware and software products involved, this book also includes information on how to select the appropriate products. The issues of scalability and conformance with open standards will also be covered.

Here are some representative titles of people who might have an interest in this book:

• System Administrator

• System Architect

• System Integrator ...