Behind%20the%20Scenes:%20A%20guide%20to%20Web%20site%20infrastructure

1
Behind the ScenesA guide to Web site
infrastructure

• Pete Cliff
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email p.d.cliff_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.a
c.uk/
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.
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
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
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
Why is a sound layout desirable?

• A sound layout facilitates
• Site maintenance
• Site access management
• Site consistency
• Site scalability

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
Thinking about maintenance...

• Tools and techniques to maintain a Web site
• Infrastructure
• User feedback
• Metadata
• Server log files
• Integrity - link checking

8
Thinking about access...

• You will need to manage
• Users
• Authors
• Robots
• even your own site index robot

9
Thinking about design...

• 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

10
Approaches Hierarchy
Conceptual Hierarchy A simple library example
www.ourlib.ac.uk
Catalogue
Joining Instructions
Music
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Services
Information
How to renew books
Children's
Opening Times
Reference Library
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Approaches Hierarchy
Conceptual Hierarchy A simple library example
12
Approaches Hierarchy
Conceptual Hierarchy A simple library example
13
Approaches Hierarchy
Conceptual Hierarchy A simple library example
14
Approaches Hierarchy
Conceptual Hierarchy A simple library example
15
Approaches Hierarchy
File Hierarchy A simple library example
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Approaches Hierarchy
File Hierarchy A simple library example
/
/information/
index.html
/renew/
/catalogue/
index.cgi
/services/
/reference/
index.html
/mobile/
index.html
...
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Approaches Hierarchy

• Reflects the design and navigation of the site
• Use folders to group related content
• Avoid local jargon
• Make URLs logical
• Put index.html everywhere

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Approaches Hierarchy

• Relative internal links
• In file www.ourlib.gov.uk/search/index.html
• Link lta hrefhttp//www.ourlib.gov.uk/
• search/advanced.htmlgtAdvancedlt/agt
• Not portable
• Browser follows path from root
• Link lta hrefadvanced.htmlgtAdvancedlt/agt
• Users navigate with links - anticipate this

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Approaches Hierarchy

• 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

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Approaches Hierarchy

• 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

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Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

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Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

23
Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

24
Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

25
Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

26
Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Identify the elements of your Web site defined
  by the template

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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/
index.html
/catalogue/
/services/
/reference/
index.html
/mobile/
index.html
...
/site/
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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

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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

Web server
GET /index.html
User
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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

/index.html
Web server
GET /index.html
User
31
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

lt!--include file/site/nav.ssi--gt
/index.html
Web server
GET /index.html
User
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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

/site/
/index.html
Virtual Page
Web server
GET /index.html
User
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Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Advantages
• Changes to a handful of files effect the whole
  site
• Repeated content only stored once
• Almost a database...

34
Approaches Templates and SSIs

• Disadvantages
• Access management
• restricted by the file system
• No management system
• Cannot easily output other formats - XML, WML,
  RSS, etc.

35
Approaches Databases Users
Users
36
Approaches Databases Users
DBMS
Web Interface
Users
37
Approaches Databases Users
Content Data
DBMS
Web Interface
Template Data
Users
38
Approaches Databases Authors
Content Data
DBMS
Author
Web Interface
Template Data
Author
39
Approaches Databases Admin
Content Data
DBMS
Administrator
Web Interface
Template Data
Administrator
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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

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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
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
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.h
  tml
• Microsoft White Paper on Content Management
• http//www.microsoft.com/technet/ecommerce/contmgt
  .asp

44
Behind the ScenesA guide to Web site
infrastructure

• Pete Cliff
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email p.d.cliff_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.a
c.uk/
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.