Unit 28 P2 Explain the user side and server side factors that influence the performance of a website

Explain the user side and server side factors that influence the performance of a website

User side:

Cache Memory

Your computer has a storage known as cache memory. Well what is cache memory? Cache memory is what your web browser so like Google Chrome use to load webpages. Why does it do that? Your browser does this for when you revisit a webpage so when you go back to that page again you will notice it speeds up the download time to then furthermore display the webpage. What is bad about this? If you do not turn off your computer very often then the cache memory will fill up and become full this can slow down your computer when trying to access other features or websites in that manner.

Your Broadband internet connection/Download speeds

Lets talk about this easily, your broadband; Sky, BT, Virgin whatever you have can effect your load time to webpages. Well how? Depending on your area will impact how fast your webpages will load on the internet because of the data transfer between you and your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Also depending on what broadband package you pay for can depend on how much data you can download or how fast so your internet speeds this varys from 100mps to 20mbps.The faster the speed the better it is for you to access webpages and the distance too people who live in rural areas will find internet allot slower than people in more populated areas. 

Processor Speeds(performance)

You may be thinking oh why will your computer processor affect webpages? well simply webpages are affected by this because if you have a processor that is not very fast for instance then it will take longer for your computer to complete tasks. The processor is the brain of your computer the lower model of a processor you have so comparing Intel Pentium to Intel i7 processor the difference in speeds will be immense.

Your actual browser

If you are stumbled by this well after this quick explanation you should not be. Your browser lets talk some names Internet explorer, Google Chrome , Safari the list goes on but if your has many addition application built into it for instance extra tool bars this will slow down the user time of loading a webpage as the browser has to run these application within it so your computers performance will be affected as the RAM memory (Random access memory will be filling up with more and more processes this furthermore concludes to that the processor itself explained in the above paragraph will struggle to keep up with that many requests. Upgrading your RAM will help by storing more processes. 

Server side:

Number of hits

If the number of site hits are very high and the servers are very limited you will have a high increased timing trying  to access the selected webpage say for instance a new site pops up and loads of people hit onto that website the response time of the servers would become lower and lower as many users are trying to access the site all at once.  This is so that no damage to the website 

Bandwidth

This is where the company that owns the website has to pay for more data traffic so metaphorically speaking if you had a thin and thick tube and you poured water down both of them the one with the most amount of water pouring out will be better for you, so in technical terms the more bandwidth the better off you are. If you have a small bandwidth 

File types

Bitmap-This file type pixilates when you zoom in on the image, if the servers running the website are not very good the pixilation will look alot worse than what it usually is this means that your number of hits may go down due to users not liking the display of the website.

Vector-These images are smaller in file size and use mathmatical caluculations this therefore meaning that when a user zooms in on the image the imnage does not pixilate in anyway this meaning that a clear image no matter how far you zoom within the image. As they are a smaller file type this means that more of the images can be stored on the website as they take up les smemory space.

Wav-This file type is made up of audio but into chunks of data This wouls affect a website load time as certain chinks of the audio will most certainly be bnigger this could slow down load time for users.

MP3-This is the most common audio file as it is compressed this meaning that if users were to play the file or download it this process would be much faster because of the actual file size itself.