So I've been looking into page speed and have been reading about Google's Server Side GTM. Wondering if a lot of people have transitioned to this and what the costs could be for a high traffic marketing site. If the site already has a ton of tags, is this something that can be set up by the marketing department or developers, or is it more likely needed to hire someone who specializes in GTM.
If anyone has experienced this transition and has any information to share regarding page speed results that would be greatly appreciated as well.
The page speed change will vary depending on your site and the health of your container. You can measure it. Just go to your site, go to devtools, block GTM, reload the page. Compare that to how fast it loads with it.
General conclusion: Most GTM containers have zero influence on page load speed. Even if the library is not cached. Before it's non-blocking.
Keep in mind that best practice for implementing server-side GTM is using it in conjunction with the regular GTM. Which kinda defeats the purpose since sending GA hits is not something affecting your site speed. Unless you create real hardware load with them. Which is pretty difficult.
Now, to maintain your sGTM, you do need to increase spendings, but the main expense is usually not on maintaining the instance with the container. The main expense has a more long-term nature. The maintenance of the backend instance will require more expensive experts, much tougher debugging, typically involvement of normally more expensive backend devs and so on.
Generally, going sGTM route just because it sounds like fun is a bad idea to do in production. There should be a good business case to justify it.
Related
I understand this is a loaded question, however I am going to try my luck to see if anyone has info/documentation that I have been unable to locate thus far. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of REST API functionality could point me in the correct direction.
In looking to deploy Remedy 9.1, I am being told REST API will be disabled due to performance concerns of the front end application itself (web interface). I am trying to find out if there is any quality control or prioritization that occurs on the backend that would mitigate this concern.
I understand that there are some obvious savings in not having to dynamically render a webpage or engage the front end virtually at all when making a REST API call, so when pulling data its more lean 1 to 1 to use REST. However if someone where to be reckless with a REST API call, is the ARServer at all equipped to manage this request by assigning it low priority, or would it simply take down the whole system?
In a perfect world I would love if someone could point me to some specific documentation that has something close to a definitive answer either way.
Thanks for any help anyone may be able to send my way.
Deploy a server group, keep one server for the front end and one for the back end. Only make calls to the 'back end' server.
I think the bigger issue that is being avoided is that there are kinds of places for bottlenecks. If they are concerned about that, what guardrails do they have in place to protect from an overloaded database? Or a table lock? The REST API is just another client. There is only so much you can do to protect the system. Since it is another client, it has all the protections at the app level that exist for every other client. Indexing, requiring search criteria, threading, and other performance tactics will help regardless of the client.
RCJ has a good point in that you can dedicate servers in the server group (or even outside of it) to accommodate their needs. But you will always go back to the central database as the ultimate risk.
We're launching an iPhone app soon, and if everything goes well, we might reach up to tens of millions of user each day.
What server solution would you use for this? I guess a small VPS isn't enough. Is dedicated server a better choice? Is there any good hosting provider that can provide such servers?
I'm a newbie when It comes to servers, and would like some basic info about how to handle this.
Thanks in advance
Unfortunately, you are not really going to know the apps requirements until the app is launched. It all depends on how much the app needs to communicate with the server, and how often users are using the app. Depending on those variables and even more, a VPS might be enough, or you may need a dedicated box, or several. It also depends a lot on the performance of the VPS and dedicated boxes, furthermore it depends on how much access to the system you need.
Ultimately, it seems you may not even know how well the app is going to do, so I suggest you take the cheap/efficient route of using cloud computing. That way you will limit your expenses initially when you app has a small user base. Then your performance can amp up as quickly as your app requires (of course so will the price). That is the benefit of cloud computing, you will not be losing money in the beginning until you have the user base to use your server to its limit. Furthermore, you do not have downtime, etc when/if your server is no longer enough.
Check out Google's Cloud Computing to get a hint of what is possible. I personally like Google's cloud experience, but you have many more options with varying degrees of freedom that you will have to check out. Amazon of course is another possibility.
I've searched the web for this bit to no avail - I Hope some one can point me in the right direction. I'm happy to look things up, but its knowing where to start.
I am creating an iPhone app which takes content updates from a webserver and will also push feedback there. Whilst the content is obviously available via the app, I don't want the source address to be discovered and published my some unhelpful person so that it all becomes freely available.
I'm therefore looking at placing it in a mySQL database and possibly writing some PHP routines to provide access to my http(s) requests. That's all pretty new to me but I can probably do it. However, I'm not sure where to start with the security question. Something simple and straightforward would be great. Also, any guidance on whether to stick with the XML parser I currently have or to switch to JSON would be much appreciated.
The content consists of straightforward data but also html and images.
Doing exactly what you want (prevent users from 'unauthorized' apps to get access to this data') is rather difficult because at the end of the day, any access codes and/or URLs will be stored in your app for someone to dig up and exploit.
If you can, consider authenticating against the USER not the App. So that even if there is a 3rd party app created that can access this data from where ever you store it, you can still disable it on a per-user basis.
Like everything in the field of Information Security, you have to consider the cost-benefit. You need to weigh-up the value of your data vs. the cost of your security both in terms of actual development cost and the cost of protecting it as well as the cost of inconveniencing users to the point that you can't sell your data at all.
Good luck!
Related question: What is the most efficient way to break up a centralised database?
I'm going to try and make this question fairly general so it will benefit others.
About 3 years ago, I implemented an integrated CRM and website. Because I wanted to impress the customer, I implemented the cheapest architecture I could think of, which was to host the central database and website on the web server. I created a desktop application which communicates with the web server via a web service (this application runs from their main office).
In hindsight this was rather foolish, as now that the company has grown, their internet connection becomes slower and slower each month. Now, because of the speed issues, the desktop software times out on a regular basis, the customer is left with 3 options:
Purchase a faster internet connection.
Move the database (and website) to an in-house server.
Re-design the architecture so that the CRM and web databases are separate.
The first option is the "easiest", but certainly not the cheapest long term. Second option; if we move the website to in-house hosting, the client has to combat issues like overloaded/poor/offline internet connection, loss of power, etc. And the final option; the client is loathed to pay a whole whack of cash for me to re-design and re-code the architecture, and I can't afford to do this for free (I need to eat).
Is there any way to recover from when you've screwed up the design of a distributed system so bad, that none of the options work? Or is it a case of cutting your losses and just learning from the mistake? I feel terrible that there's no quick fix for this problem.
You didn't screw up. The customer wanted the cheapest option, you gave it to them, this is the cost that they put off. I hope you haven't assumed blame with your customer. If they're blaming you, it's a classic case of them paying for a Chevy while wanting a Mercedes.
Pursuant to that:
Your customer needs to make a business decision about what to do. Your job is to explain to them the consequences of each of the choices in as honest and professional a way as possible and leave the choice up to them.
Just remember, you didn't screw up! You provided for them a solution that served their needs for years, and they were happy with it until they exceeded the system's design basis. If they don't want to have to maintain the system's scalability again three years from now, they're going to have to be willing to pay for it now. Software isn't magic.
I wouldn't call it a screw up unless:
It was known how much traffic or performance requirements would grow. And
You deliberately designed the system to under-perform. And
You deliberately designed the system to be rigid and non adaptable to change.
A screw up would have been to over-engineer a highly complex system costing more than what the scale at the time demanded.
In fact it is good practice to only invest as much as can currently be leveraged by the business, using growth to fund further investment in scalability, should it be required. It is simple risk management.
Surely as the business has grown over time, presumably with the help of your software, they have also set aside something for the next level up. They should be thanking you for helping grow their business beyond expectations, and throwing money at you so you can help them carry through to the next level of growth.
All of those three options could be good. Which one is the best depends on cost benefits analysis, ROI etc. It is partially a technical decision but mostly a business one.
Congratulations on helping build a growing business up til now, and on to the future.
Are you sure that the cause of the timeouts is the internet connection, and not some performance issues in the web service / CRM system? By timeout I'm going to assume you mean something like ~30 seconds, in which case:
Either the internet connection is to blame and so you would see these sorts of timeouts to other websites (e.g. google), which is clearly unacceptable and so sorting the internet is your only real option.
Or the timeout is caused either by the desktop application, the web serice, or due to exessively large amounts of information being passed backwards and forwards, in which case you should either address the performance issue how you might any other bug, or look into ways of optimising the Desktop application so that less information is passed backwards and forwards.
In sort: the architecture that you currently have seems (fundamentally) fine to me, on the basis that (performance problems aside) access for the company to the CRM system should be comparable to accesss for the public to the system - as long as your customers have reasonable response times, so should the company.
Install a copy of the database on the local network. Then let the client software communicate with the local copy and let the database software do the synchronization between the local database server and the database on the webserver. It depends on which database you use, but some of them have tools to make that work. In MSSQL it is called replication.
First things first how much of the code do you really have to throw away? What language did you use for the Desktop client? Something .NET and you may be able to salvage a good chuck of the logic of the system and only need to redo the UI and some of the connections.
My thoughts are that 1 and 2 are out of the question, while 1 might be a good idea it doesn't solve the real problem. And we as engineers should try and build solutions not dependent on the client when ever possible. And 2 makes them get into something they aren't experts at and it is better to keep the hosting else where.
Also since you mention a web service is all you are really losing the UI? You can alway reuse the webservices for the web server interface.
Lastly you could look at using a framework to help provide a simple web based CRUD to start and then expand from there.
Are you sure the connection is saturated? You could be hitting all sorts of network, I/O and database problems... Unless you've already done so, use wireshark to analyze the traffic; measure the throughput and share the results with us.
As I'm starting to develop for the web, I'm noticing that having a document between the client and myself that clearly lays out what they want would be very helpful for both parties. After reading some of Joel's advice, doing anything without a spec is a headache, unless of course your billing hourly ;)
In those that have had experience,
what is a good way to extract all
the information possible from the
client about what they want their
website to do and how it looks? Good
ways to avoid feature creep?
What web specific requirements
should I be aware of? (graphic
design perhaps)
What do you use to write your specs in?
Any thing else one should know?
Thanks!
Ps: to "StackOverflow Purists" , if my question sucks, i'm open to feed back on how to improve it rather than votes down and "your question sucks" comments
Depends on the goal of the web-site. If it is a site to market a new product being released by the client, it is easier to narrow down the spec, if it's a general site, then it's a lot of back and forth.
Outline the following:
What is the goal of the site / re-design.
What is the expected raise in customer base?
What is the customer retainment goal?
What is the target demographic?
Outline from the start all the interactive elements - flash / movies / games.
Outline the IA, sit down with the client and outline all the sections they want. Think up of how to organize it and bring it back to them.
Get all changes in writing.
Do all spec preparation before starting development to avoid last minute changes.
Some general pointers
Be polite, but don't be too easy-going. If the client is asking for something impossible, let them know that in a polite way. Don't say YOU can't do it, say it is not possible to accomplish that in the allotted time and budget.
Avoid making comparisons between your ideas and big name company websites. Don't say your search function will be like Google, because you set a certain kind of standard for your program that the user is used to.
Follow standards in whatever area of work you are. This will make sure that the code is not only easy to maintain later but also avoid the chances of bugs.
Stress accessibility to yourself and the client, it is a big a thing.
More stuff:
Do not be afraid to voice your opinion. Of course, the client has the money and the decision at hand whether to work with you - so be polite. But don't be a push-over, you have been in the industry and you know how it works, so let them know what will work and what won't.
If the client stumbles on your technical explanations, don't assume they are stupid, they are just in another industry.
Steer the client away from cliches and buzz words. Avoid throwing words like 'ajax' and 'web 2.0' around, unless you have the exact functionality in mind.
Make sure to plan everything before you start work as I have said above. If the site is interactive, you have to make sure everything meshes together. When the site is thought up piece by piece, trust me it is noticeable.
One piece of advice that I've seen in many software design situations (not just web site design) relates to user expectations. Some people manage them well by giving the user something to see, while making sure that the user doesn't believe that the thing they're seeing can actually work.
Paper prototyping can help a lot for this type of situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_prototyping
I'm with the paper prototyping, but use iplotz.com for it, which is working out fine so far from us.
It makes you think about how the application should work in more detail, and thus makes it less likely to miss out on certain things you need to build, and it makes it much easier to explain to the client what you are thinking of.
You can also ask the client to use iplotz to explain the demands to you, or cooperate in it.
I also found looking for client questionnaires on google a good idea to help generate some more ideas:
Google: web client questionnaire,
There are dozens of pdfs and other forms to learn from