Business overview
Mackenzie Ward Research specialises in providing e-learning publications and products that exploit digital interactive technologies. They combine content, design and technology to develop e-learning materials. With 20 years of experience in education, cultural heritage and continuing professional development their production approach is collaborative. Essentially they develop partnerships that combine the best of design, technology and content with a sound knowledge of how people learn. They recently built the "Making The Modern World" (MMW) website (www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk) for NMSI's London Science Museum.
Background
The MMW website was meticulously designed and built by Mackenzie Ward Research. As the site was expected to be extremely popular with a variety of users it became apparent that its ability to perform under extreme loads was going to be a major contributor to its success. No matter how perfectly a service such as the MMW site is created it must be available at all times with no obvious reduction in performance.
The predicted traffic load was going to be high (based on visitor levels to NMSI's main website) so a performance audit or load test was proposed by Mackenzie Ward Research as a way to plan and manage the service's availability.
Details of service delivered
The overall load test was comprised of smaller 'transaction' tests. These tests are designed around the different transactions (and combinations of those transactions) that may be performed by users. Each test was designed to account for varying levels of complexity and bandwidth requirements. Specific results were obtained relating to:
Performance Targets
Target Load
Response Times
Transaction Completion Times
The Testing Environment (site server)
With each transaction test the bandwidth used was measured to produce meaningful statistical results.
Expectations
Mackenzie Ward Research needed a testing solution that would perform 3 functions:
Consolidate the overall package being delivered to their customer by ensuring that it would perform well in its native environment
Create a complete delivery scenario with all of the customers needs being met
Provide the assurance that their solution could be presented and used to its best capabilities
Problems solved / Outcomes
Following testing and minimal remedial work the MMW's site and server were able to operate faster and more reliably under load. The following are the tangible results of the MWR InfoSecurity Load Test:
Bandwidth monitoring
Enabling of OS Performance & Application Code Tuning
Graphical trend analysis
Hardware performance monitoring
Identification of scripts requiring tuning
Monitoring of transaction completion times
Enabling the optimisation of website performance
The implementation of our recommendations increased service availability and gave users faster environments.
Testimonial
"MWR InfoSecurity provided just the right quantity and quality of support to give us confidence that we were providing our customer with a credible solution. They also ensured that all stakeholders were made aware of the likely outcomes that the chosen solution could provide."
Rob Day
Chief Technical Officer
2004-06-09 |
