Author: spierzchala

As a Web performance analyst, this is the sort of graph that melts your mind and makes you want to scream at the gods|goddesses to rain a plague of locusts on the offending System|Network|Web Site Administrators.

Click for a larger version

This is a classic display of the “run in circles, scream and shout” problem identification and resolution process.

One-half of the Opera Web servers at http://www.opera.com/ are not responding.

50%.

They have three separate public IP addresses, and it is clear that behind those IPs are many more NAT|VIP machines that respond to requests.

Did I mention that one-half of the machines at all three IP addresses are not responding to HTTP requests?

Has anyone at Opera noticed this?

Sometimes I feel like even the echoes aren’t listening anymore.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, Web performance, Opera, Opera Web browser, www.opera.com

Thanks to the efforts of Paul Querna, GrabPERF is the proud receiver of data from the San Francisco Ask.com measurement agent.

Thanks to the powers that be at Ask.com, and I look forward to seeing lots of good data in the future!

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, Web Performance, Ask, Ask.com, Paul Querna

Ouch!

Likely it will be back soon.

Technorati Tags: blogs, Brad Feld, Web performance, GrabPERF

UPDATE: Brad’s blog is back…kinda

AJAX is an amazing bit of technology, and a boon to Web performance.
The question is, how do you accurately measure it?
Now, from the perspective of synthetic transaction measurement, AJAX destroys the foundational concept of the “Page”, as it is built on the concept of the “sequence”. “Pages” assume a whole new HTML document is loaded in each step, where a “sequence” simply tracks the specific flow of steps that the customer performs, regardless of whether they occur in a new HTML document or not.
In this respect, passive monitoring services currently have a distinct advantage over synthetic measurement, because they intrinsically track the sequence of event that a customer triggers, rather than the pages that are downloaded. I will not declare the death of synthetic Web performance measurement yet (my day job is with one the largest synthetic Web performance measurement companies); but the industry has to re-evaluate many of its core precepts.
AJAX is a technology that will definitely benefit from the blending of passive and synthetic performance measurement into a single usable stream of information that companies can act on. With this blend, companies can determine how their servers are responding, as well as what customers are doing, tracking the flow of business data in real-time.
What will be interesting to watch is how the synthetic measurement companies (including the one I work for) respond to this. One of the companies in our space says that they handle it now, but I have yet to see the results of their effort and how they really implement it in the field.
How are you and your team measuring the performance of your AJAX applications?
Technorati Tags: AJAX, Web performance, synthetic, passive, measurement

Am I missing any?

Let me know.
Technorati Tags: Memes, meme tracker, Web performance, GrabPERF

The Web APM Blog: So many tools, so small a budget

If not now, when? And is Web performance management an extra, or a necessity?

Technorati Tags: Web performance, APM

The team at BlogFlux laid on some major performance improvements to their Mapstats service last night.

This is a fantastic improvement! I can’t wait to hear how they achieved it.

Technorati Tags: BlogFlux, MapStats, Web performance, GrabPERF

Yesterday I was on a call with a customer who flat out stated that 55% of their bandwidth was consumed by applications pulling RSS feeds.
Does your company have a grip on just how much continual background noise RSS feeds inflict on your Web servers?
Technorati Tags: RSS, Web performance, bandwidth