Analysis & Commentary:

BUILDING THE PERFECT E-BUSINESS SERVER

As reported by Lou Hirsh, when it comes to server configurations, e-business companies must choose what works best for them based on business size, expected traffic during peak hours, security needs and a host of other considerations.

According to Gartner research director Whit Andrews, most businesses have a one- or two-server configuration. In a two-server setup, one machine is housed behind a firewall to protect sensitive internal information, while the second lets users access Web content outside the firewall.

Increasingly, for security reasons, companies are adding a third server that works as an intermediary, relaying transaction and content information between the other two.

Speedy and Scalable

Andrews said that e-business server systems usually require dual processors for speed and must be scalable -- that is, able to be upgraded as business requirements grow -- although improving technology has made hardware scalability less of an issue in recent years.

"Scalability is not the issue people thought it would be back in 1998 and 1999," Andrews said, although he noted that overall system scalability remains crucial for some companies, such as airlines, which must be able to handle huge spikes in Web traffic during certain periods.

Andrews added that hardware costs have declined to a point at which many companies can afford to buy more server capacity than they presently require, so they can hook up extra capacity as needed at a later date.

Serving Up Apps

A growing trend in e-business is use of application servers. Forrester analyst Nick Wilkoff said these servers are specifically set up to handle operations that involve interactions between customers and a company's back-end systems and databases.

In the e-business sector, Wilkoff said, application servers gaining wide use include Microsoft's Commerce Server, IBM's WebSphere and offerings from specialized commerce providers, such as Intershop, Blue Martini, ATG and BroadVision.

Application servers handle almost all functions, including interactive catalogs, personalization and order management. Wilkoff said these multipurpose systems can adapt easily to the needs of small and large businesses, although a significant number of the world's largest companies prefer more customizable, open source servers running Java-based applications.

How companies set up their servers in terms of storage space, memory and processing power is dictated by demands on the business. For example, Giga Information Group analyst Joel Yaffe told the E-Commerce Times that most of his firm's clients -- large enterprises -- use speedy, memory-intensive equipment from Sun or Compaq.

Crunching the Numbers

Requirements for different parts of a business can vary greatly. For instance, Sun's latest version of its Netra X1 server, which is used in front-end systems of small and mid-size companies, operates with a 500 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive.

For application processing, Sun's 450 server, also targeted toward mid-size firms, accommodates one to four processing modules, each with up to 480 MHz of processing speed, 128 MB to 4 GB of memory, and 108 GB of hard drive space.

With a back-end system, the same mid-size company might use Sun's 4500, which holds up to 14 processing units, each with maximum memory of 28 GB and hard drive storage of more than 2 terabytes.

Experts noted that server requirements for large enterprises increase significantly in all three server areas -- front-end, application and back-end.

In-House or Outsourced?

Another big issue to consider is whether to set up Web server operations internally or to outsource such functions to a hosting provider.

According to a research report by Giga's Yaffe, some "moderately trafficked" commerce sites can save money by outsourcing Web hosting to an outside vendor.

For example, the cost to purchase three Web servers for either an in-house or hosted site would be about $30,000. But a company's bill for network equipment -- including switches and routers -- would be about $20,000 if the site were hosted, versus $50,000 to fully equip an in-house site.

Hosted sites also can save companies money in terms of staffing. Yaffe noted that few organizations are sufficiently equipped to provide the 24/7 technical support and monitoring that a Web site requires.

Yaffe said Giga advises clients to consider outsourcing primarily as a "tactical solution" to bring their products and services to market. At the same time, he said, companies should invest in the infrastructure and staffing needed to bring the site back in-house and reestablish control over the long term.