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Behind the Scenes: A guide to Web site infrastructure

Behind the Scenes: A guide to Web site infrastructure. Email p.d.cliff@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/. Pete Cliff UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY.

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Behind the Scenes: A guide to Web site infrastructure

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  1. Behind the Scenes:A guide to Web site infrastructure Email p.d.cliff@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Pete Cliff UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY 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 Music Joining Instructions Local Studies Mobile Library Services Information How to renew books Children's Opening Times Reference Library

  11. Top Level Headings Lower Levels Information Reference Library Catalogue Joining Instructions Services How to renew books www.ourlib.ac.uk Local Studies Mobile Library Children's Opening Times Music Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

  12. Top Level Headings Lower Levels Information Reference Library Catalogue Joining Instructions Services How to renew books www.ourlib.ac.uk Local Studies Mobile Library Children's Opening Times Music Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

  13. www.ourlib.ac.uk Information Opening Times Joining Instructions How to renew books Catalogue Services Reference Library Mobile Library Local Studies Children's Music Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

  14. www.ourlib.ac.uk 1 file Information Opening Times Joining Instructions How to renew books Catalogue Services Reference Library Mobile Library Local Studies directories Children's Music Approaches: Hierarchy Conceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example

  15. / /information/ index.html /catalogue/ /services/ /reference/ index.html /mobile/ index.html ... Approaches: Hierarchy File Hierarchy: A simple library example

  16. Approaches: Hierarchy File Hierarchy: A simple library example / /information/ index.html /renew/ /catalogue/ index.cgi /services/ /reference/ index.html /mobile/ index.html ...

  17. 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

  18. Approaches: Hierarchy • ‘Relative’ internal links • In file: www.ourlib.gov.uk/search/index.html • Link: <a href=“http://www.ourlib.gov.uk/ • search/advanced.html”>|Advanced|</a> • Not portable • Browser follows path from root • Link: <a href=“advanced.html”>|Advanced|</a> • Users navigate with links - anticipate this

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. Approaches: Templates and SSIs • Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template

  22. 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

  27. 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/

  28. 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

  29. 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

  30. 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 <!--#include file=“/site/nav.ssi”--> /index.html Web server GET: /index.html User

  32. 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

  33. 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

  40. 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

  41. 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.html • Microsoft White Paper on Content Management • http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ecommerce/contmgt.asp

  44. Behind the Scenes:A guide to Web site infrastructure Email p.d.cliff@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Pete Cliff UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY 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.

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