CMPE 472 Case in e-commerce infrastructure

E-commerce Infrastructure E-commerce is described as a new paradigm –Innovation –Application It does not happen without the infrastructure electronically linking IS and their users

Case 1: HighWired.com HighWired.com provides high school students and teachers a range of free services to enable school interaction on a personalised school website. –Free unlimited website hosting –Publishing tools – and messaging –Sports related team management tools They aim to aggregate the largest community of high school websites in order to attract corporate sponsors and vendors interested in accessing high school market. The goal was –To reach 30mm page views up from 10mm now. –Grow revenues from $5mm in 2000 to $15mm and $30mm in 2001 and 2002 respectively

Case 1: HighWired.com Capacity issues –Network grew from 1000 member high schools to over in 50 states and 72 countries in 13 months. The only company that combined four communities: school, sports, alumni, educators. Articulate, implement and finance a strategy Designed to be easy for students and teachers –Point, click and publish Employed 120 people –40 engineers 5 hardware, 35 product development

Case 1: HighWired.com VP of Product Development: –Directed all technology related initiatives Development, engineering, QA, network and DB architecture –He was CTO of Softbank and GM of Info Access Centre –His BS is in math HighWired Products: –School life: classrooms, guidance offices, newspapers, sports teams, student activities –Simplified publishing tools, unlimited server space, message boards, free –NYC board of education pilot

Case 1: HighWired.com Growth and Venture Capital Financing: –In 1999: 1000 members from 50 states and 18 foreign countries –Launched 2 new website building tools –Partnership/ sponsorship agreements with 4 companies –Raised $7mm in venture funding by 2 venture capital firms Reached 1900 schools in 50 states and 32 countries Reached 5000 schools in 2000 –Raised 2 nd round of $30mm in 2000 Launched sports By mid 2000 reached member schools

Case 1: HighWired.com History of technolgy decisions: –Initially chose Intel based hw running Windows NT3 and used Microsoft’s SQL server ($1000) as a DB. –Main application was Vignette StoryServer –Within first few months moved to Sun Solaris hw Vignette’s sw support personnel was familiar with Sun Brought on board 2 Sun E250 servers to run web server and story server with a connection between the 2. Stable platform Faster and less expensive altenatives existed (Dell, Intel, Compaq) –Hosting was done by Exodus Communications Huge data centre, internet bandwidth, fire suppression, high security, redundant power, air-conditioning. Fixed costs were paid on per sq meter

Case 1: HighWired.com 1.Page request Linux Box (Packet Filter) Local Disk Storage Web Server 1Web Server 2 Local Disk Storage 2.Undamaged packets proceed 3.Page Requested Database Server Local Disk Storage 4.Page is retrieved 5.Page is served to viewer Current HighWired.com Hardware Configuration

Case 1: HighWired.com History of technolgy decisions: –There were not any non-critical hw components; all linked to one another –Service distinction; internal versus external requests –Bandwidth was the only variable cost Charged by Exodus for one megabit per second treshold, sampled every 15 minutes Cost ranged in the hundreds of dollars Not significant relative to hw costs

Case 1: HighWired.com Site performance metrics –Response time Used a third party performance measurement system: Keynote Noted the amount of time it took for their requests to be filled Played a role of an end-user Results were benchmarked against 40 companies –Down time Targeted to be up 99.8% of the time Scheduled Unscheduled A third party service (Red Alert) monitored the site from a service perspective.

Case 1: HighWired.com Server configuration options –To minimise response time and down time: Utilise sw to make the current complement of servers more efficient Purchase a ‘big box’ server Replicate data onto separate servers Divide data between separate servers Geographically locate replicated servers, allowing for regional handling of data requests