WARP 2063 Application Pre-Processor Case Study
Forbes.com Delivers High Performance Dynamic Content with WARP 2063

About Forbes.com

Forbes.com Inc., is a leading Internet media company. It is one of the most trusted on-line information resources for business and investment leaders. The Web site (www.forbes.com) provides its readers with uncompromising commentary, concise analysis and real-time reporting on business, technology, investing and lifestyle. The Web site also provides stock and mutual fund quotes, comprehensive company profiles and annual Forbes Lists.

The Challenge

The Internet has become the primary source for targeted news and other types of information such as financial and economic updates. Many successful business news sites such as Forbes.com have developed dedicated readership and have become the standard for delivery of targeted content. Forbes.com created a sophisticated system, capable of delivering real time business and financial news and information. The challenge was delivering the highest level of Quality of Service (QOS). The site has to accommodate high numbers of simultaneous visitors, and the response time has to be instantaneous. Using existing infrastructure, the cost of delivering such high QOS is significant. With high end personalization engine and application server software, and the associated hardware, bandwidth and maintenance costs, sites can spend significant amounts only to end in disappointing performance. The challenge was magnified by annual high traffic events, such as Forbes Lists. During these events, the number of visitors to the site is dramatically higher than normal readership. Handling temporary traffic spikes while maintaining a high level of QOS using standard solutions was an expensive proposition.

The Solution

Michael Smith, the CTO of Forbes.com, considered several options: scale his existing infrastructure to meet the peaks at prohibitive cost, sacrifice functionality by reducing dynamic content updates, or leave the site at current sizing and hope for the best. After evaluating Warp's unique solution Michael concluded that WARP 2063 Application Pre-Processor offered the kind of powerful infrastructure enhancement that allowed Forbes.com to achieve the desired QOS at a reduced cost. WARP 2063 Application Pre-Processor was installed into the existing environment. The appliance was configured to cache the most frequently requested dynamic pages. External rules were applied to understand the changes to dynamic data - allowing optimization of the web site, while maintaining full flexibility. No changes were required to existing infrastructure and application components.

The Results

  • Increased Capacity: Each WARP 2063 has the ability to serve up to 800 dynamic pages/second. By configuring the web site to service the most frequently requested dynamic pages from WARP 2063, the overall capacity of the site was increased by a magnitude of 200%.

  • At the same time, existing databases and application servers, were freed up to process other requests. Existing infrastructure maintained optimum performance during peak periods of utilization.

  • Faster web site: Before WARP 2063, dynamic repeat requests for dynamic content suffered equal (if not higher) latency. The data was retrieved from the database and assembled by the application server before being served to the user. With the implementation of WARP 2063, frequently requested data was stored in a pre-processed manner, saving precious time. Typical transaction time was reduced by a magnitude of 400%.

  • Cost-effectiveness: There was no need for additional hardware, fiber channel, or expensive module purchase. WARP 2063's short installation and customization time saved man-months of costly employee and consultant implementation time. And improved performance and system availability greatly reduced ongoing support costs.