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1. What is the target audience for the site?
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- Extranet — A captive audience outside the client’s company
- Intranet — A captive audience inside the client’s company
- Internet — An open, worldwide audience
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2. Is this site mission-critical?
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If so, the hosting vendor would need to have multiple data centers in different cities.
Each of these would need to have backup power, backup data paths, and methods of data
synchronization between the multiple servers that host the client data. This also has
many implications for the way the client site is designed.
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3. What are the site’s availability requirements?
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- Redundant — The system can never be down
- High — The system can be scheduled to go down
- Low— The system is not mission-critical
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How large is the site?
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You must determine the total storage requirements for the site. Some vendors have limits and/or
charge by the amount of total disk space used. Also, you must calculate how many files
of other types will the pages contain (for example, WAV, MPEG, AVI,etc.)? How many
total megabytes of data will the site contain?
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5. Is the site static?
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A static Web site is the simplest. The pages do not change once they are written, and they are
displayed to the end user as they were originally built. These sites have the least stringent
requirements for hosting. They will usually work correctly from any Windows, UNIX, Linux, or Mac
server.
If the site is static:
How often are new HTML or data files modified or uploaded? Data changed daily or
weekly has different implications than that which changes monthly or quarterly.
If the data is rapidly changing, what methods of changing it does the client prefer?
Methods range from Front Page Extensions on the server to FTP to providing a CD-ROM to e-mail and more.
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6. Is the site dynamic?
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A dynamic Web site contains pages in which content changes, generally as a
result of user action—for example, a Web site that syndicates content from other
Web sites. If the site is dynamic, the answers to the following questions will
strongly influence the hosting platform as well as the installed software and server
configuration. In some cases, a hosting vendor will need to custom-configure a server
for a demanding client Web site.
Does the site use scripting? Scripting could be anything from ASP, which only runs on
Windows platforms, to PHP, Python, PERL, or Java script. The scripting may either be
embedded in the Web pages themselves or accessed through CGI, or both.
Does the site use applets? These can be Java applets, Macromedia products like Flash or
Shockwave, or other plug-ins.
Does the site use servlets? A servlet is a small program that runs on a server and can
perform calculations for a user, position an image based on user interaction, or other such
actions. These are typically Java-based and have special server requirements.
Does the site use an online database? This could be anything from MS Access to an SQL
server, like Oracle, MySQL, mSQL, or POSTGRES. The database the client site was created
around will have a strong influence on which platform the site must be hosted.
If the database is read-only, backups are not much of a concern. If the database is active—for
example, taking customer orders—the database must be backed up regularly.
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7. Are there downloadable files on the site?
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If so…
Do they need to be served from the Web server?
Do they need to be served from an FTP server? Some hosting providers, especially
on the lower end, don't provide FTP services.
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8. Does the site use or need security?
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Are there secure areas that require SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates? These could
be forms that take orders or areas of the site that contain sensitive data.
Are there privileged areas of the site? These could be protected with simple
username/password access controls. How often do these access controls need to be
modified? Some providers allow client mechanisms to update access, but some force you
to use their technical support staff to make any access changes.
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9. Does the site use any e-commerce tools?
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These must be compatible with the selected vendor's server configuration,
revisiting the question of SSL certificates.
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10. How much bandwidth does the client require?
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Properly estimating client bandwidth requirements can have a strong impact on
hosting costs. A bandwidth of 500 MB per month amounts to about 27 downloads of
Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer. Is past bandwidth utilization data available?
If not, are past server access log files available?
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