FragSwitch: Hosting Tutorial: Dynamic Sites - FragSwitch

Last week we mentioned in our tutorial that dynamic sites, such as bulletin boards and content managements systems, need to move sooner than static content. But why is this? Well we're going to explain it in this weeks tutorial.

Introduction

Dynamic means changing, putting this in web terms means that a dynamic website can change per interaction, depending on users (welcome messages with your user name is an example) and what is published on the site. Conversely, static means unchanging, in web terms however it doesn't mean that the content never changes. just that the web site is incapable of changing according to a users interaction.

The difference in the two types of site technically can be very simple. A dynamic site, no matter what it's doing, will have been parsed and executed before it's sent to the client. While a static site is sent directly to the client with no further processing involved on the server's side. As a dynamic site needs more attention from the server, we have to consider system resources.

System Resources

The term System Resources is used to refer to CPU Time, Disk Read/Write and RAM Read/Write. A CPU (or Core if you have a multiple Core processor) can only concentrate on one thing at a time, however, that time is normally a fraction of a second and so the CPU will seemingly execute many things at once. The same applies to Hard Drives and RAM, which have a limit to what they can do at any one time. There is a finite amount of system resources, but when they are not being used, are available to be used again. Running several programs, or running complicated programs (like the latest video game) can use up more system resources than running fewer or simpler programs.

As servers are required to run many different programs and considering that complex programs take up more system resources than simple ones (a bulletin board being a complex program), servers can soon run low on system resources. Having many users visit your site and running your complex program (bulletin board) will mean that more system resources are used in total to serve your site.

What happens when a server runs low on or out of system resources? You will notice reduced performance (slow loading times), especially for things like bulletin boards and content management systems. In extreme cases a server may crash if resources are stretched too far, obviously when that happens your site won't be available to visit.

Conclusion

As server performance can be effected by people "hogging" the system resources, companies often ask their clients to upgrade or, if they are unable to host their site, ask them to move hosts. This is to prevent the reduced performance effecting too many people.

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