This would cost around $1500 US dollars and unfortunately doesn't include dual power supplies or a UPS. If you add on the costs of buying that separately, it will cost you another $1200 dollars which would bring the total to around $3,200 AUD.
Buying locally is always an option but would strongly recommend against it. Local companies and smaller companies tend to come and go. Even if they still stay in business, what is their level of support? To avoid worries a final recommendation would be to go with Dell.
Internet Connection
Picking a connection to the Internet comes down to basic principles in marked priority. Speed is obviously an important factor as too slow of a link would discourage if not reject users from using the site. A fast connection is no good unless you are sure the company that is providing it can keep the connection up. If a connection should go down,a knowledgeable and well informed customer support team is there to help you. Lastly, $200 dollar was the price ceiling for an internet connection. This is a good level for the connection that you require and there is much competition for supplying internet access for businesses.
We have discussed with you on a number of occasions how many people you believe to be accessing the site on a daily basis. You expect 100's of users a day to utilize your web server. You also declare that you will be serving static pages (html), images, and dynamic pages (php). We estimate the file size of a typical html page to be 10KB, an average image 60KB and a dynamic page to be 200KB. Thus, these numbers get plugged into the following equation:
Class throughput = total requests(per hour) x class percentage x average size
observation period
Static Pages 313 x .5 x (10,000 x 8)/3600=3.47Kbps Images 313 x .3 x (60,000 x 8)/3600=12.252Kbps Dynamic Pages 313 x .2 x (200,000 x 8)/3600=27.8Kbps Total= 43.522Kbps
Total requests= # of users multiplied by the amount of pages they will request (hourly)
If we assume that daily 500 users access the site and request and average of 15 pages each, that will total 7500 requests every day.
Divide 7500, by 24 to get the hourly access rate which is 313.
We can also assume that 50% of the requests will be for static pages, 30% for images, and 20% for dynamic pages.
24 hours divided by 3 is 8 hours. Multiplying each file size by 8 will give us the average size.
3,600 is the observation period which gives us a per second look at the speed needed.
When all the numbers are added up, the estimated speed needed is 43.522Kbps.
An ADSL connection through a company called Internode, gives us 256Kbps download and 64Kbps upload. The uploading speed is the only important ones as we will be "uploading pages" to clients. 64Kbps gives us about 20Kbps in wriggle room just in case usage surges. Web traffic can surge 68% to be fully operational. But there are many downfalls to limiting ourselves to a 64Kbps connection.
Disadvantages-
Firstly, 64Kbps is a theoretical maximum that the DSL line can reach thus speeds may be lower.
DSL runs over copper wires thus its entire infrastructure is in Telstra's hands. This could changed speeds and make the line inaccessible at times if Telstra needs to make repairs or the network is congested.
During finals or any other time that requires more users than normal to the website, traffic can be significantly higher. The maximum amount of theoretical users the site can serve is about 840 users per day or 12600 requests per day. This may not be enough and a solid recommendation is to have 1000% of the estimated speed needed which would be 435.22Kbps.
So a better recommendation is to have a link that can serve requests at a minimum of 435.22Kbps. Internode also offers a plan that can accommodate this. Their plan "SDSL-512-Bronze" is $165 dollars a month with a $149 dollar set up fee. This link offers 512Kbps upload speeds.
Other companies with 512K/512K DSL, Unlimited uploads connections:
@Tech : $160/month, $99/setup, Not as big as Internode, less customer support
TPG: $150/month, $129/setup, Very big company, very comparable to Internode.
Other companies offering at least 512K upload:
CABLE: Telstra Bigpond Cable: Great speeds but speed is dependent on how many other people are near you using cable internet. Expensive setup $300. Not unlimited uploads.
WIRELESS: Alphalink Wireless: Great speeds but expensive setup and no unlimited downloads
T1: Telstra: Very stable connection, Very expensive 1.54Mbps (overkill)
SATELLITE: Ihug: Data limit, expensive.
-Advantages
This is the most cost effective way to provide a data link to the internet for the speed that is required.
Customer support for this company is highly rated and is available 24 hours a day.
Source: Whirlpool
SSI
SSI stands for Server Side Includes. From the Apache website : "
SSI (Server Side Includes) are directives that are placed in HTML pages, and evaluated on the server while the pages are being served. They let you add dynamically generated content to an existing HTML page, without having to serve the entire page via a CGI program, or other dynamic technology."You can see an example of a server side include with the following page on the server:
http://www2.wswt.net:58730/home.shtml
This pages displays when the page was last modified and the current date. This data is pulled off the server.
The code to display the "Last Modified Date" is <!--echo var="LAST_MODIFIED"-->.
The code to display the "Current Date" is <!--echo var="DATE_LOCAL"-->.
You can also include another page within a page. This is done by utilizing <!--#include virtual="navbar.html" -->.
In order, to get SSI to work, you must save the files with the extension .shtml.
In our previous report, we spoke about access logs. Looking at a log with hundreds of thousands of entries is not efficient for anyone. Included in the server software is a program called "Webalizer". It takes the access logs as input and outputs a webpage showing graphical statistics of the website.
The top graph shows a monthly view of access rates to the student2.wswt.net:58730 website.
Hits is the amount of requests that are received by the server.
Files represent the amount of requests were a file was actually served backed to the client.
Sites is the amount of different users who accessed the site. This is assessed by looking at the unique ip address of the user.
Visits is when a remote site requests a file from the server for the first time.
Pages are all files with html, html, or cgi that are served.
The Kbytes stands for kilobytes and shows how much data was transferred.
To access the web reports for the server, go to the following link. Username: Microsoft PW: Windows
User Tracking
User tracking is a very useful tool that many sites employ. Most famously, Amazon.com, an online shopping megastore, tracks exactly where every user surfs to upon their site. The site can then recommend products based on surfing patterns. User tracking is switched on for the student2.wswt.net:58730 site.
To enable usertracking, the apache server had to be reinstalled.
The following configure command will add the user tracking module to the Apache server:
./configure --prefix=/students/username/apache3 --with-port=yourport --enable-so --enable-usertrack --enable-userdir --enable-usertrack --enable-include --enable-cgi--enable-expires --with-mpm=worker
Once apache is installed the following lines were added to the httpd.conf file in the student2.wswt.net Virtual Host container:
CookieTracking on
CustomLog /students/nmoreton/apache3/logs/clickstream "%{cookie}n %r %t"
"Cookie Tracking on" simply switches the usertrack or cookietrack on.
CustomLog creates a log named clickstream that records info about where each individual user surfed to on the site.
"%{cookie}n %r %t" writes the contents of the cookie, the first line of the request, and the time.
The following is the start page of Amazon.com personalized for me.
