1. 1 Behind the Scenes: A guide to Web site infrastructure Pete Cliff UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based. Email p.d.cliff@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

2. 2 Behind the Scenes The structure of this talk: What is Web site infrastructure? Why is it desirable? Thinking about your site Approaches Hierarchy Content Management Systems (databases)

3. 3 What is Web site infrastructure? What are we talking about when we say “Web site infrastructure?” The array of hardware that is the Internet? No The look and feel of a site No Here we are talking about the backend ‘layout’ of the Web site

4. 4 Why is a sound layout desirable? Q. What is it you want from your Web site? A. an up to date, informative, usable and useful, Web resource Through: design  layout maintenance access control

5. 5 Why is a sound layout desirable? A sound layout facilitates: Site maintenance Site access management Site consistency Site scalability

6. 6 Why should I bother? “My site is only 10 pages in a single directory, this does not apply to me…” 10 pages 100 pages 1000 pages 10,000 pages

7. 7 Thinking about maintenance... Tools and techniques to maintain a Web site: Infrastructure User feedback Metadata Server log files Integrity - link checking

8. 8 Thinking about access... You will need to manage: Users Authors Robots even your own site index robot

9. 9 Remember: design  layout Steps towards a Web site: Define the audience, purpose and content Group content into logical groups Define links between content Create your ‘infostructure’ [ref] Create your templates Reflect all of this in the site infrastructure Thinking about design...

10. 10 Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Catalogue Services Joining InstructionsMusic Opening Times Local Studies Mobile Library Reference Library Children's How to renew books

11. 11 Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Catalogue Services Joining Instructions Music Opening Times Local Studies Mobile Library Reference Library Children's How to renew books Top Level Headings Lower Levels

12. 12 www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Catalogue Services Joining Instructions Music Opening Times Local Studies Mobile Library Reference Library Children's How to renew books Top Level Headings Lower Levels Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

13. 13 Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Catalogue Services Joining Instructions Music Opening Times Local Studies Mobile Library Reference Library Children's How to renew books

14. 14 www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Catalogue Services Joining Instructions Music Opening Times Local Studies Mobile Library Reference Library Children's How to renew books 1 file directories Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

15. 15 Approaches: Hierarchy File Hierarchy: A simple library example / /information/ /catalogue/ /services/ index.html... /mobile/ /reference/ index.html

16. 16 / /information/ /catalogue/ /services/ index.html... /mobile/ /reference/ index.html /renew/ index.cgi Approaches: Hierarchy File Hierarchy: A simple library example

17. 17 Reflects the design and navigation of the site Use folders to group related content Avoid local jargon Make URLs logical Put ‘index.html’ everywhere Approaches: Hierarchy

18. 18 ‘Relative’ internal links In file: www.ourlib.gov.uk/search/index.html Link: <a href=“http://www.ourlib.gov.uk/ search/advanced.html”>|Advanced| Not portable Browser follows path from root Link: |Advanced| Users navigate with links - anticipate this Approaches: Hierarchy

19. 19 Advantages: You are probably already doing it! Familiar Lots of support and tools Disk structure reflects structure of site Well established methods Easy to set up Approaches: Hierarchy

20. 20 Disadvantages: As sites grow consistency becomes hard to manage Not scalable Difficult to maintain Need to update many pages Cannot easily transform pages to new HTML standards Answer: Server Side Includes Approaches: Hierarchy

21. 21 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

22. 22 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

23. 23 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

24. 24 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

25. 25 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

26. 26 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

27. 27 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory / /information/ /catalogue/ /services/ index.html... /mobile/ /reference/ index.html /site/

28. 28 Approaches: Templates and SSIs Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory Dynamically include the elements into each page

29. 29 Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory Dynamically include the elements into each page User GET: /index.html Web server Approaches: Templates and SSIs

30. 30 Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory Dynamically include the elements into each page User GET: /index.html /index.html Web server Approaches: Templates and SSIs

31. 31 Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory Dynamically include the elements into each page User GET: /index.html /index.html Web server Approaches: Templates and SSIs

32. 32 Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template Separate these out and keep them in a separate directory Dynamically include the elements into each page User GET: /index.html /index.html /site/* Web server Virtual Page Approaches: Templates and SSIs

33. 33 Advantages: Changes to a handful of files effect the whole site Repeated content only stored once Almost a database... Approaches: Templates and SSIs

34. 34 Disadvantages: Access management restricted by the file system No ‘management system’ Cannot easily output other formats - XML, WML, RSS, etc. Approaches: Templates and SSIs

35. 35 Approaches: Databases: Users Users

36. 36 Approaches: Databases: Users DBMS Web Interface Users

37. 37 Approaches: Databases: Users Content Data Template Data Web Interface Users DBMS

38. 38 Approaches: Databases: Authors Content Data Template Data DBMS Web Interface Author

39. 39 Approaches: Databases: Admin Content Data Template Data DBMS Web Interface Administrator

40. 40 Content Management Systems “ACS, AOLServer, BackStream, Broadvision, CMS, Cocoon, ColdFusion, Communique 2, Communiware, Conversant, DB Prism, DVP.HTMPlates Pro, EditTag, Enhydra, FileMaker Pro, Frontier, FutureTense, GIST, InCopy, Mason, MediaDepot, Mediasurface, Midgard, NetObjects Fusion, Netscape Application Server, NewsPro, Onion, PAS, Provue SiteWarrior, RedDot,RedSnapper, Revize, RiSource, Roosh Newspublisher, SiteBuilder, SiteEditor, Slashdot, SmartWorker, Spectra, SquishDot, StoryServer, Tallyman, Teamsite, Tempest, WebMacro, WebObjects, WebSite Director, Zope” List supplied by Paul Browning, University of Bristol

41. 41 Approaches: Databases: Issues Search engines might not index all pages Ensure the database serves pages as though they were flat pages CMSs often provide their own tools Will all your users want to use them? Dependence on a single supplier Requires specialist software Who hosts your Web server? High cost - software and training

42. 42 Behind the Scenes: Conclusion Look at your site and ask: How scalable is it? What are the static elements? What are the dynamic elements? How do these fit together to create a page? How am I going to manage access?

43. 43 References A Guide to Good Practice for WWW Authors, Margaret Isaacs http://www.dcs.glas.ac.uk/SIMA/toc.html Webmonkey http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/39/index3a.html Composing Good HTML, Eric Tilton, (“Infostructure”) http://www.ology.org/tilt/cgh/ (the rest of www.ology.org is odd…) Content Management Systems Parallel Session Resources from IWMC 2000 http://www.bris.ac.uk/ISC/cms/ Buyers Guide to Content Management Systems http://www.networkcomputing.com/1111/1111buyers2.html Microsoft White Paper on Content Management http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ecommerce/contmgt.asp

44. 44 Behind the Scenes: A guide to Web site infrastructure Pete Cliff UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based. Email p.d.cliff@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/