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Perl CGl Programming: No experience required.
(Publisher: Sybex, Inc.)
Author(s): Erik Strom
ISBN: 0782121578
Publication Date: 11/01/97

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Skill 11
Platforms on the World Wide Web

  Choosing a computer and operating system
  Comparing the “Big Three”: UNIX, Windows NT, and Windows 95
  Making choices about Web servers and browsers

You can’t do anything on the World Wide Web without a computer and software to run on it. If that statement seems simplistic, well, it is. However, when you decide to set up a Web site, you’re taking on more responsibility than you would if you were, for example, installing a new graphics package on your home PC. Visitors expect a Web site to be up and running any time they want to pop in for a visit; they rarely return to sites that won’t answer their connection requests.

A Web site requires more computing power than applications intended for home use. The server has to be reliable and powerful enough to handle the volume of traffic you expect it to generate. Who knows? Your popularity estimates could very well be way off the mark. The computer that drives your Web site has to be able to step up to the task of handling the additional visitors easily.

In this skill, you’ll learn about the platforms of the World Wide Web, and some of the choices you have for both hardware and software to run your Web site. It’s important that you make your decisions about system configuration wisely, because the success of your site can hinge on whether you have adequate equipment or not.

Choosing a Computer and Operating System

When IBM introduced its PS/2 Model 80 personal computer in the mid-'80s at a price of about $10,000, one of Big Blue’s executives bragged that the new PC was 10 times more powerful than a mainframe computer the company sold in the '70s for $5 million.

The Model 80 was powered by an Intel 80386 microprocessor driven at 16MHz, with 70MB of disk storage, 4MB of memory, and a juiced-up video display card and monitor that could resolve 640 by 480 pixels in 256 colors. For $600 extra, you could equip the Model 80 with an Intel 80387 math coprocessor to speed up its calculating capabilities, thus allowing you to draw graphical images faster.

Now, a decade or so later, even computer neophytes would regard this setup as pitifully inadequate to the most commonplace tasks. Indeed, software has become so huge and bloated with fancy graphical user interfaces that a Model 80 simply couldn’t handle it. And the price! For $10,000 nowadays, you could buy enough computing equipment to power your own stock exchange, let alone run a Web site.

It goes to show you how times change and, in terms of computing power, how lucky we are compared with the shoppers of 10 years ago. They, in turn, had a lot more at their fingertips than their counterparts of a decade earlier. And certainly, 10 years from now, historians will smile indulgently at what we think is a powerful computer.

Deciding on the Hardware

While a 1987 IBM PS/2 Model 80 probably wouldn’t be up to running a Web site with more than a couple of visitors a year, you don’t need a supercomputer to do it. Your main concerns with the hardware are threefold:

  Is the microprocessor—the chip that runs the computer—powerful enough to handle the Web server’s requests in a timely fashion? In other words, will your visitors have to wait for a response because the processor can’t keep up with the server software?
  Does the computer have enough memory to run the Web server software and any CGI applications your site requires without bogging down?
  Have you supplied the computer with enough disk space to hold the Web server, your application development software, graphics for your Web pages, and any additional goodies you want to provide for visitors (with an acre or two of free space left over)?

Keep these general concerns in mind as you plan the hardware configuration for this site. It is difficult to make specific recommendations about computers. Moore’s Law, which states that microprocessors will roughly double in power every year, makes it especially difficult to write about computers because the darn things keep changing all the time. A state-of-the-art machine at this writing might be next year’s automatic-sprinkler controller.

You will have armed yourself with enough information to know what hardware configurations would be considered adequately powerful at the time you make your purchases or computer upgrades. Sometimes, many of the decisions are made for you by the requirements of your software. Powerful operating systems impose their own requirements for equally powerful machines. Let’s look at some of the possibilities.


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