Computing Internet Books


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Computing Internet Books sorted by Bestselling .

Computing Internet
Grid Computing: Practical Guide To Technology & Applications (Programming Series)
Published in Paperback by Charles River Media (2003-12)
Author: Ahmar Abbas
List price: $49.95
New price: $2.18
Used price: $2.13

Average review score:

Fairly good overview
Helpful Votes: 15 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 2004-12-14
The interest in grid computing has increased dramatically in scientific circles in the last decade, due in part to the need for high performance scientific computing and the availability of operating systems that make the deployment of distributed computing more painless for the scientific investigator. With the exception of financial firms, grid computing has not made inroads into the business community. Private industry has expressed concerns about the security of grid computing and various psychological barriers have prohibited it from being incorporated even in business LAN environments. This book gives a fairly comprehensive overview of grid computing for those interested in obtaining knowledge as to its efficacy in high performance computing or for those who are investigating whether it can indeed be practical for business. It is readily apparent that the author wants private industry to take grid computing more seriously, and he gives ample discussion of just how this could be done.

Part of this discussion involves the relation between Web services and grid computing. Those readers who deal with Web services would expect a connection between grid computing and Web services, and the `Open Grid Services Architecture', spearheaded by IBM and the Globus team, is an attempt to unify the two. The author points out the main difference between the two architectures, namely that Web services support "persistent" services while grid architectures must also support "transient" services, such as video conferencing. Web services is in place in many different industries at the present time, but it remains to be seen whether it will remain so in years to come, due in part to the conflicts between the different standardization efforts.

The different types of grids that can be configured are also discussed in the book. These include departmental grids, designed for a group of people within an enterprise, enterprise grids which cover all users within an enterprise, and extraprise grids, which can be established within companies. Grid computing has had some reported successes, particular the SETI grid project and the FOLD grid project for calculating protein folding. Both are popular with the public and have GUI interfaces that are very pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

One of the biggest reasons for not being able to do grid computing in a business environment is the reluctance of management to allow many or all of the machines in the organization to be dedicated to the grid, even if done when the machines are offline. This is true even for the `desktop' grids that are discussed in this book. Subjective factors, such as privacy issues (even if they are not valid) and imagined interference come into play when approaching grid computing in a professional business environment. The presence of distributed software on the various machines in the organization may cause many to believe it is the cause of an outage or other problems when they occur. Trust in grid computing has to develop before it will be used routinely in a business environment. The author does address these concerns in the book.

He also discusses the need for an easier transition to grid computing in a business context, if the decision to deploy it has been made. The time taken to make grid computing a reality in this context must be minimal, considering the great amount of investment that has already been made in designing, implementing, and maintaining existing applications. Such a transition can be handled by using the approach of Web services, or what he calls Grid services. He outlines a few different ways in which the existing code can be wrapped. If the source code is not available, one can wrap the executables for example. If it is, it can wrapped and additional code overlaid on it in order to interface properly with any existing applications. A WSDL (Web Service Description Document) is then generated and placed in a registry service, in order that other applications can make use of the service. The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) registry is the one that is advocated by the author.

Several applications of grid computing are discussed in the book, each having various degrees of ease in actual deployment. Numerical applications using Monte Carlo are viewed as the easiest ones to be "grid-enabled", and this is born out in experience. Financial and biotechnology firms in particular are heavy users of grid-enabled applications that utilize Monte Carlo simulations. The author discusses a rudimentary test, called the `compute intensity ratio' to check whether an application is suitable for deploying on a grid. If this ratio is greater than one, then the application is deemed to be well suited for distributed processing on a grid. Applications in desktop grid computing such as risk management and financial derivatives, molecular docking for drug discovery, and architectural rendering are briefly discussed.

As an example of a cluster grid, the famous Beowulf cluster, which is heavily used in scientific computing, is discussed in the book. Scientific computing is the major driver behind grid computing, as is readily apparent throughout the book. Discussion of high performance grid computing occupies an entire chapter of the book in fact. Production High Performance Computing via the use of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) has allowed scientists to develop grid applications more effectively, without having to worry too much about architectural issues.

The author has included several examples of how grid computing is used in the business community, such as in telecommunications and bioinformatics. There are more examples than he discusses, but they are usually not made public because of considerations of propriety. Businesses that have used grid computing to further their success are usually not vocal in their approaches. The book would have been better if the author had included actual benchmarking studies of how businesses have improved their financial positions by using grid computing, with in-depth figures that illustrate quantitatively the power of grid computing. The inclusion of such studies would definitely assist those who are seriously considering grid computing.

Good Overview
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-01-21
The newest, highest performance PC's are more powerful than the biggest supercomputers of the early 1990's. But with the higher computational capacity the bigger the tasks assigned to be computed. Note that these are not your typical business applications. The biggest computational tasks today lie in four areas: atomic energy research, weather prediction, cryptography and bioinformatics.

Some of these tasks lend themselves well to being split up amongst a bunch of computers. Cryptography, as an example lends itself well to taking a message and assigning each computer to attack the message with a different key. The processing is independent of the results from other computers attacking the message. What one computer could do eventually, 30,000 or 3 million can do just that much faster.

This book is obviously on using a collection of computers, not necessarily co-located to handle such complex computing tasks. A full time practitioner writes it with collaboration from leaders in the field.


Computing Internet
Security Monitoring with Cisco Security MARS
Published in Kindle Edition by Cisco Press (2008-03-11)
Authors: Gary Halleen and Greg Kellogg
List price: $48.00
New price: $38.40

Average review score:

A must have book on Cisco's MARS
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-10-26
This is the best MARS book by far if you need the straight hard core information to get it done. As a CCIE I highly recommend it.

This really got me going
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-20
This book had all the right information I needed to get going with MARS. The way the book is organized, I was able to go from start to finish with my MARS appliance. I can now fully understand how the device works to help me protect my organization from security threats, as well as report on statistics that were essential to my management. One of the most helpful components for me was the great usage of screenshots that clearly illustrated each process being discussed.

I certainly recommend this book to anyone who is looking at security event management products, or has purchased MARS for their organization!

Overall a must for anyone working with CS-MARS product
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-21
This MARS book is a must have for consultants, engineers and operations staff. When I first got the book, I thought that it was going to be a replica of the first, but I was truly surprised. The authors use real life example to explain how to use the features/functionality of the MARS product. This made the book very easy to understand for different levels of knowledge and also made it easier to use these features in a production environment. My favorite chapter was the one on queries and reports. Any user of the MARS know how important a good understanding of queries and reporting and the authors make sure that you understand these topics.

I found that the authors did a great job detailing the importance and configuration of Archiving for CS-MARS. Many organizations forget to do this and suffer because of it.

Some of the other highlights that caught my eye and I thought everyone would like were:

- Chapter on Regulatory Compliance - Most books offer too many details on information that does not mean a lot to their audience, but this gives the perfect amount of information in order for you to understand the compliancy rules and how CS-MARS specifically handles them.

- How to size the MARS box for your organization

- Another chapter that caught the eye, was how to secure your MARS appliance, and why you should, with suggested IPS placement and firewall rules

- Details into how to use CS-MARS in your incident response procedure

- Integration of CSM with CS-MARS, this is where Cisco really stands out with security, being able to bring intelligence from one product into another

- The book would not of been complete without a section on the Custom Parser. There are a few examples, plus a parser for the Cisco CSC Module that you won't find anywhere else.

Overall a must for anyone working with CS-MARS product.


Computing Internet
Emerging Technologies of Augmented Reality: Interfaces and Design
Published in Hardcover by IGI Global (2006-11-10)
Author:
List price: $99.95
New price: $79.96
Used price: $99.95


Computing Internet
CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement
Published in Kindle Edition by Pearson Education (USA) (2007-03-23)
Author: Richard Turner
List price: $39.99
New price: $31.99

Average review score:

a brief overview of CMMI
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-02
Garcia and Turner address a widely held concern about adopting CMMI. That it is overly heavy, with much to assimilate before a group of programmers can usefully apply it. Well ok, CMMI can be used for more than just software development. But as a practical matter, most of its users and proposed users are in that business. The book is perhaps also a reaction to the Agile process. The latter is in some ways the mirror image of CMMI, with short design and coding cycles.

The book gives a relatively quick walkthrough of CMMI. A broad picture about using CMMI to improve your development process. En route, it also discusses general topics like project management issues, which are not exclusive to CMMI. The entire text is really just a primer for CMMI. It shows that CMMI has many subtopics, and the procedures involved can be rather detailed. Adding up to a formidable total barrier for the newcomer. But the text does supply enough information to give an appreciation of what CMMI can do for you, and the concepts to be mastered.

Of all the chapters, I found Chapter 11 to be the most formidable. It seems to give the strongest indicator of the amount of material in CMMI. Just consider the O process areas within CMMI. "You'll need people who can implement the practices in Organisational Process Focus, Organisational Process Definition, Organisational Training, Organisational Innovation and Deployment and (eventually) Organisational Process Performance". Whew! And the chapter goes on to give more information about what these might entail. No wonder some might baulk at CMMI.

Getting and recognizing benefit from process improvement
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-23
An easy to read book about using an abstract model: this is quite a feat. This is the book I'd write about improving processes, if I had the time, the talent, the motivation, etc. I've been doing this improvement work for many years, occasionally with the authors, and it is gratifying to see that they've captured so many good practices and useful ideas and shared them in an accessible, friendly way.
Many different fields use CMMI as a standard, to decide about improvement planning, to gauge their results, to convince customers they are reliable. This book shows the way around the pit-falls, points out the poison-ivy patches, and can help people find their way to the benefits of process improvement.
Of course CMMI for Development can be daunting: it describes professional engineering and engineering management practices in enough detail to be used in several ways by different communities. Finally, it isn't CMMI that drives people to disappointing improvement results. Mistakes in judging how easy it is to get people to change or even to describe their way of doing things often have led to "heavy" process implementations, as change agents add more and more detail hoping it will get people to use the processes. Or, mistaking how fast processes can be implemented can lead to mandated processes that work well for no one.
The authors have accurately described how to find your "main, broad road" to the benefits of improvements, and the many factors that you have to consider that will lead you there. Now I don't have to write this book. I'll give it to our customer's managers and their process engineers and be confident that they can get good direction from it: we now have a rich resource of techniques, stories, and directions that we can refer to in our projects.
Okay, some criticism: the techniques described in the last chapters are very effective, but have to be approached with discipline as well as a fun-finding mind-set, so they may not work for everyone. But that's one of the good things about the book- the authors say that few improvements work exactly the way you want, the very first time. Honest and useful advice.

Far more readable and effective than other process books...
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-08
I've been exposed to a number of process improvement methodologies throughout my career, as well as read a number of books that try to explain them. To be honest, it's not a subject that's high on my "can't wait to read" list. But were more books styled like CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement by Suzanne Garcia and Richard Turner, I would probably be more inclined to give them a chance. This book covers what you need to know without all of the mind-numbing jargon and detail...

Contents:
Part 1 - Scouting the Territory: Why We Think Process Is Important; Why Process Improvement Helps; Why Process Improvement Isn't Trivial
Part 2 - Mapping the Route: CMMI As Your Guide; A Decision-based Life Cycle for Improvement
Part 3 - Surviving the Passage: A PI Case Study; Survival and PI
Part 4 - Experiencing the Journey: Developing and Sustaining Sponsorship; Setting and Measuring Against Realistic Goals; Managing an Appraisal Life Cycle; Developing Process Improvement Infrastructure; Defining Processes; Looking Ahead
Part 5 - Outfitting Your Expedition (PI Resources): Tools and Techniques
Bibliography; Index

The basic direction of the authors is to talk to the reader like they were actually there, and to simplify CMMI so that it can be grasped and understood. And when you place a traditionally process-heavy methodology like CMMI up against agile methodologies like Extreme Programming, you realize just what a task the authors have taken on. Surprisingly, they pull it off pretty well. Part 1 lays the foundation for why a business or organization needs to have some sort of process improvement plan in place. The larger the organization is, the more important it becomes. Then using CMMI as the framework, part 2 covers the main topics of just what makes up the process improvement effort. Part 3 is where the application of the process becomes concrete. They use an easily-understandable case study that takes concepts and applies them to actual situations. That's usually where the large "formal" books fail. You can stuff as much information into your head as you want, but until it gets applied, it's pretty useless. Part 4 goes into more details of how the process works on an ongoing basis, followed by the actual tools and techniques that come into play for CMMI (part 5). By the end, you've covered everything you need to know (and you haven't poked your eyeballs out in frustration).

While this might not be the "official" guide to a methodology, it's far more readable and applicable than books three times its size. And if you can read and understand the material, you have a far better chance of making it actually work...


Computing Internet
Building Solutions with Microsoft Commerce Server 2002 (Pro-Developer)
Published in Paperback by Microsoft Press (2003-04-23)
Authors: Clayton C. Peddy and Derek Armentrout
List price: $49.99
New price: $1.49
Used price: $0.82

Average review score:

will never help developer
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-09-26
I was extremely surprised to see this book. as a developer I couldn't make a single thing. it was more like reading a brochure for a product. By finishing the book I knew so many features that are in the product but I had no idea how to use them.

My advice: if you are a developer then don't even think about buying this book.

Amazing
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2005-03-03
I found the portions written by Clayton Peddy to be
Amazing, I can not stress how much this book changed
the way I think about the subject

Great for project managers. Poor for developers.
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2005-03-15
I was a little let down by this book because I wanted to get both an overview of Commerce Server and a bit more detail in the API. There simply aren't enough examples to articulate the writers' points. I'm learning that Commerce Server is much like chess -- it takes a few minutes to learn, and a lifetime to master. This book is supposed to guide its reader from design to coding and implementation as well as testing. Instead, it only handles design and very basic uncommon development scenarios.

I feel this book would be better geared to a project manager or architect trying to learn how Commerce Server can be beneficial to an eCommerce project; however, I don't feel a developer can properly learn to use Commerce Server from this book.

please debug your code
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2004-08-12
sample store does not work.
i don't have time to debug my own code let alone sample code from a book :)
the book does give a good overview of commerce 2002 (unfortunally there's nothging to compate it to)
where are you wrox !

-5 Stars - Worthless and next to useless
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2005-02-23
Don't waste your time with this book, The sample site doesn't build the examples they do give in the book aren't even used in their code. If you plan on building a commerce server web site and don't know commerce server already this book won't help you. In fact, even if you do know commerce server this book won't help you. With out a doubt the most worthless, development book I have ever had the miss fortune to read. I have found one use for it...as a monitor stand.


Computing Internet
The Exim SMTP Mail Server: Official Guide for Release 4
Published in Paperback by UIT Cambridge Ltd. (2007-04-01)
Author: Philip Hazel
List price: $65.00
New price: $42.51
Used price: $44.90


Computing Internet
Apache Server Unleashed
Published in Paperback by Sams (2000-03-09)
Authors: Richard Bowen, Matthew Marlowe, and Ken Coar
List price: $49.99
New price: $9.90
Used price: $3.15

Average review score:

Pretty good
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-06
This book has been generally helpful. It is well written, appears to be accurate, covers many topics, and is well indexed. It does not have the level of detail that, say, a good O'Reilly book has, but I believe it happens to be as good as (or maybe a touch better than) the O'Reilly book on this subject.

APACHE - Running without fear!
Helpful Votes: 10 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2000-08-16
The top choice for understanding Apache concepts and for installing the webserver for several reasons. First, compare it to the competition. The text is easier to understand and a faster read than Wrox's "Professional Apache" (sometimes Wrox books meander to fill space), and the "Apache Bible", is not even in the same league because of problems with organization and presentation.

The best way to sum it up: The Authors of "Apache Unleashed" are not afraid of the product so after reading the text you understand what the Apache trend is really about - A very simple yet powerful product -. I guess this is why 60% of Internet servers are Apache based. Intentionally, the book "Apache Unleashed" remains true to this concept.

Of special note - This book also addresses Windows users who want to run Apache (I believe this is a growing market.)

Starting from scratch, I was able to install Apache and point 150 domains to my in-house web server during one weekend. (You also need O'Reilly's DNS Bind to do this.)

Good Luck!

Let's hear it for Apache!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2001-05-10
Apache Web Server is the most widely-used Web Server on the net, and for good reason! This book shows you how to harness the incredible power of the Apache Server. It explains everything, from the different request code-values and what they mean, to every line of the httpd.conf configuration file. Also, this book is nearly platform independent! Use it on Windows or Linux (Unix) it doesn't really matter! Of course it favors the Unix platform a little more because that is its native platform. If you are trying to run Apache Server, get this book! It also serves as an INCREDIBLE reference text.

Great reference book
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2000-08-09
This book is clear, precise and concise. It will teach you how to set and administer Apache easily. If you need answers here the author spelled them out. Also is the closest match to the current release (1.3.12) - Book covers (1.3.9).Highly recommended.

K. Limberg reviewed the wrong book, I think
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2000-08-12
Just a note of clarification: I suspect that that K. Limberg was thinking of a different book when writing the last review. There are at least two books that might have prompted it: one is essentially a copy of the source code ('Apache Server Commentary'), and the other is a copy of the documentation on the Web site (I have a copy, but can't remember the title). I can assure you that 'Apache Server Unleashed' is neither of these; it contains hundreds of pages of technical custom-written text that appear nowhere else. I know, because I wrote a bunch of it. :-)

BTW, the 5-star rating I've given is because I have to give *some* rating, and to offset the single star from what I sincerely believe is a mistaken review.


Computing Internet
VBScript, WMI, and ADSI Unleashed
Published in Kindle Edition by Sams Publishing (2008-02-14)
Author: Don Jones
List price: $39.99
New price: $28.34

Average review score:

Just what the doctor ordered
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-06-24
I had originally studied the Microsoft Press book "Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide", but still needed more.

VBScript, WMI and ADSI Unleashed is the book that I wish I had read first. It is a good choice for a system admin who wants to start scripting administrative tasks.

Having never scripted before, I had many questions. This book started from the beginning, what editor should I use for programming, and took me all the way to my first scripted program....to search AD for all Servers at or below a specified OU, remotely attach to each server, determine if it is a physical or virtual computer, run a hardware configuration utility as appropriate, reconfigure the hardware as appropriate based on the utilities output and report back to me the results. I went from nothing to decent in about two weeks.

This is a good choice for this type of book.

How refreshing!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-21
What a pleasure! This is a book written for technical administrators, by a technical administrator with a knack for writing. Don Jones demonstrates a talent for explaining the intricacies of monitoring and administering a Windows enterprise using WMI & ADSI scripting (et al) in a perfectly comprehensible manner without coming across annoyingly simplistic or condescendingly academic. Computer book writers take note!

"Congratulations on purchasing this book..now download all the VBScript documentation to learn.."
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2007-12-25
Hey all,

I was a noob in all of this scripting stuff when I bought this book. Frankly it was not a bad purchase but it did leave me kind of disappointed. The first few chapters are a waste of time because there just like a huge sales ad for the author's company that sells a VBScript IDE, added to that you never get that feeling that he's fully convinced of what he is telling you, i.e. "You should learn VBScript but it doesn't matter because we have the impending doom looming over called Windows Powershell".

Last but not least is the fact related to the title of my review, basically he stresses the point that to learn VBScript you should get the online documentation for it......then what the hell did I buy this book for? If I wanted to learn structured programming I would've bought a C++ book that will do a better job.

All in all, the book has it's good points..I just can't remember them right now 'cause I'm hungry and it's Christmas Day. It does give you the basic knowledge what scripts can do, although if you been a windows admin for a while then this will only confirm to you that there are other ways of doing stuff....and that you need the VBScript online documentation (which by the way was hard to find on Microsoft's website) to do them.

This is the only scripting book I've so sadly I can't give you an alternative to it or compare it against any but if you really are into self-learning I think that a little organization, time and all the documentation available at MS's website might do.

If you have the bucks to spare buy it, if you have time on your hands don't buy and turn over to the Net to learn.

Practical with examples
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-12-18
I found this book to be very helpful and practical with the examples given in the book. The examples have come in useful for me for basic systems administration in my Windows Server 2003 network with Active Directory. The author breaks down the example codes line by line and explains what is going on, which I found to be very helpful.

one thing I did not like was that some times the author purposely put mistakes in the code without initially telling you. Then towards the end of the section, he will ask you why the code did not work and will tell you what went wrong and why. He doesn't do this all the time, but a few times. It made me second guess myself and thought that the publisher had bad typos in the code, something familiarly seen in a lot of programming books. Good learning experience, I suppose.

Even if you are a beginner programmer wanting to learn VBscripting, I think you would be able to get the gist of VBscript by copying the examples in the book and tweaking them for your needs. This is my first VBscript book and it's definitely a keeper for me. Highly recommended!


Computing Internet
Web Performance Tuning, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly Internet)
Published in Paperback by O'Reilly Media, Inc. (2002-03)
Author: Patrick Killelea
List price: $44.95
New price: $5.69
Used price: $0.86

Average review score:

A classic reference for every engineers library
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2004-06-09
Published in 1998, this book is one of the best for web performance testing, covering the technical basics for everything you need to know in order to really understand performance tuning. It includes such required information as definitions of various performance metrics, and what those should be in the real world, and moves along through networks, hardware, and operating systems. It goes to great pains to cover a variety of systems, including Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and a variety of web servers.

Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
http://www.webperformanceinc.com

Is not just server performance tuning you know...
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-17
This is one book with wide appeal because it is useful to anyone that uses the Internet; so if you are reading this review - chances are very good that you will find this book of some use. The subtitle sums up the book very nicely... it is full of tips to help you speed up the web, regardless of how you usually go about using it.

I've had the pleasure of owning both copies of Web Performance Tuning and I must say the second edition was quite a dramatic rewrite, adding over 100 pages of new and updated information - it was about time for an update considering the age of the book.

Of course, if you are both a web user and a web developer you will derive the most benefit as pretty much everything in the book will apply to you to some degree. Part I focuses on detailing the problems that can occur, and only the first chapter has any useful information for anyone who is simply the web visitor. But if you've got any interest in knowing about server and connection failures and monitoring web performance then it would be worth taking a look at.

Part II of Web Performance Tuning actually looks at how you can improve your web experience; starting from the browser and working all the way through to the technologies that power the web. This makes it easy to follow as well as to help identify exactly where any major problems you may be experiencing are caused.

For those wanting quick answers to their browsing or server problems, then you will find help in the form of questions you might want to ask yourself right at the start of the book. I preferred the old way this quick reference was done, as it was a list of recommendations rather than a list of questions; you don't know you have a problem if you don't know the questions to ask!

Speed Racer
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-29
Four years in the making, the second edition of "Web Performance Tuning" is some 30% larger (456 vs. 351 pages) than the first, but don't let the increased size slow you down. Patrick Killelea makes good use of it by showing you how to get the best possible performance out of your web server, site, and browser. The primary emphasis is on tuning web server software, but tuning client and server hardware, streamlining content, getting the most bang for your byte are also covered.

Aimed at more advanced system administrators and webmasters, this book provides the tools and techniques you can use to maximize the speed and throughput of your server. The emphasis is on performance monitoring, analysis, and planning. You can't attack a performance problem until you understand it and that means measuring what's actually happening. Lucky for us, Killelea provides free scripts you can use to measure the performance of your web site at his own site patrick dot net.

There you'll find scripts you can use on your Unix server to measure, monitor, and debug any performance problems you're having. Killelea also provides a web-based version of his analysis.cgi script that breaks down the components of web site response time into DNS, connect time, server silence (load), transmission (content size), and close time. Type in your URL and up pops a graph of transmission times, broken down into the above components, complete with a bottleneck analysis and some recommendations.

Speaking of bottlenecks, when it comes to web performance, smoothing out bottlenecks is the name of the game. If your server is low on memory excessive swapping can occur. If you spawn too many processes without mod_perl on board you've got a problem. Killelea's tools and prose show you where the slowdowns occur, and how to fix them for maximum speed.


Everything from low volume sites (1-10,000 hits/day) to high (over 1 million hits/day) can benefit from this in-depth book. Techniques that may work well at lower traffic levels can fall apart once the server heats up. Killelea takes a pragmatic approach to performance tuning with an emphasis on actual testing and measurement rather than overplanning, mathematical modeling, and simple yet expensive solutions.

While bandwidth is steadily increasing, latency stubbornly refuses to decrease. The speed of light isn't changing anytime soon, so addressing latency, especially on the Web, is a high priority. The other parameters of performance are throughput, utilization, and efficiency. This book will help you fine tune them all to make your web site sing.

High Performance Book
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2002-06-08
Four years in the making, the second edition of "Web Performance Tuning" is some 30% larger (456 vs. 351 pages) than the first, but don't let the increased size slow you down. Patrick Killelea makes good use of it by showing you how to get the best possible performance out of your web server, site, and browser. The primary emphasis is on tuning web server software, but tuning client and server hardware, streamlining content, getting the most bang for your byte are also covered.

Aimed at more advanced system administrators and webmasters, this book provides the tools and techniques you can use to maximize the speed and throughput of your server. The emphasis is on performance monitoring, analysis, and planning. You can't attack a performance problem until you understand it and that means measuring what's actually happening. Lucky for us, Killelea provides free scripts you can use to measure the performance of your web site at his site Patrick.net.

There you'll find scripts you can use on your Unix server to measure, monitor, and debug any performance problems you're having. Killelea also provides a web-based version of his analysis.cgi script that breaks down the components of web site response time into DNS, connect time, server silence (load), transmission (content size), and close time. Type in your URL and up pops a graph of transmission times, broken down into the above components, complete with a bottleneck analysis and some recommendations.

Speaking of bottlenecks, when it comes to web performance, smoothing out bottlenecks is the name of the game. If your server is low on memory excessive swapping can occur. If you spawn too many processes without mod_perl on board you've got a problem. Killelea's tools and prose show you where the slowdowns occur, and how to fix them for maximum speed.

Everything from low volume sites (1-10,000 hits/day) to high (over 1 million hits/day) can benefit from this in-depth book. Techniques that may work well at lower traffic levels can fall apart once the server heats up. Killelea takes a pragmatic approach to performance tuning with an emphasis on actual testing and measurement rather than overplanning, mathematical modeling, and simple yet expensive solutions.

While bandwidth is steadily increasing, latency stubbornly refuses to decrease. The speed of light isn't changing anytime soon, so addressing latency, especially on the Web, is a high priority. The other parameters of performance are throughput, utilization, and efficiency. This book will help you fine tune them all to make your web site sing.

Classic O'Reilly marred by thin dynamic web coverage
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-04
Pragmatic and opinionated in the best of old-time O'Reilly style, this book is a colorful guided tour by an old-hand.

The thing is, if you need this book, your website is probably a high-traffic professional/commercial site. And in these days this means (1) dynamic content, (2) database, (3) a content-management/templating system, (4) user identity tracking. Perhaps even interface to legacy client/server systems. Unfortunately, this book goes only as far as CGI, Java, and general DB issues. Messaging middleware is briefly considered. Distributed OO (CORBA, EJB) is discussed and dismissed (a luxury in real world). No coverage of other popular dynamic web technologies (e.g. ASP, ColdFusion) or content-management systems. In particular, a serious discussion of trade-offs between performance and content/workflow manageability would ground the whole discussion in real life.

And the architecture chapter, while very insightful, is simply too thin. After all it is much better and easier to plan for performance from the start, then to try tweaking an existing system. The chapter discusses architectures of varying complexity - without including a single diagram! Complete case studies along the line of the mod_perl white paper .... would be invaluable - perhaps broken down by type (e.g. news/portal/B2C) where unique usage patterns will drive unique architecture and optimization.

Despite the tilt towards monitoring and diagnosis, this is still a very valuable book in an under-served but important area. Generous references enable the reader to explore individual topics further.


Computing Internet
Video Conferencing Over IP: Configure, Secure, and Troubleshoot
Published in Paperback by Syngress (2006-06-01)
Author: Michael Gough
List price: $49.95
New price: $31.42
Used price: $57.16

Average review score:

Integrate your system with the perfect choices
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-10-14
Simple, easy solutions for producing high-quality video conferencing are gathered under one cover in a title that covers the hardware needed for both business and personal use. Learn about requirements, protect privacy with firewalls and control systems, understand different set-ups and options, and integrate your system with the perfect choices with Video Conferencing Over IP: Configure, Secure and Troubleshoot.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch


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Related Subjects: Programming Internet Computer Design Operating Systems
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