Performance vs. Speed 

            Let’s start off by talking about performance.  I said earlier that speed is just one part of performance.  The best analogy of this is with automobiles.  A car that can go fast sounds good right?  But what happens if that car cannot turn without spinning out of control?  What happens if it takes five minutes for that car to reach 60mph?  Would you buy such a car?  Even if it has a top speed of 500mph?  This is where the difference between performance and speed exists. 

            Now, let’s apply that analogy to websites.  The first, most basic, and easiest controlled aspect of performance is download speed.  This is an often misinterpreted and overlooked problem for many websites.  For many reasons, this is not as intuitive as it may seem.  This starts (and almost ends) when you pick your hosting provider (and set up the account).  You’ll be flooded with tailored information about the bandwidth the host is providing you.  I say tailored information, because the host wants to make you think you are getting more than you really are.  There is a HUGE difference between bandwidth and monthly transfer.  Many hosts advertise 100Gb of monthly transfer.  That may sound like a lot, and in one way (actual usage) it is, but it’s also very restrictive unless you know the bandwidth limit.  100Gb per month computes to an average of 0.3 megabits per second (give or take).  To show you how that’s restrictive, let’s talk about how users use your site.

Bandwidth is key 

            Let’s first define some assumptions for this hypothetical site we’re working on.  Let’s say it’s a personally targeted site (targeted for personal usage as opposed to business to business usage), and targeted for US users (or any country for that matter).  Now, since it’s not really targeted for businesses, we can safely assume (again, for the most part) that the bulk of the traffic will come after business hours.  Taking into account time zones, there’s about a 6 hour window for the bulk of the traffic to the site (and about 3 of them will be busier then the others).  If we assume that one page (including graphics) is about 30 kb, then that 0.3 mbit/s will be completely gone at about 1 hit per second.  1 hit per second equates to around 20,000 hits in those 6 hours.  That sound great, right?  But toss in some JavaScript, some bigger images, and that size can quickly top 100kb.  At 100kb, that 1 hit per second drops to around 0.3 hits per second, which equates to 6500 hits in those 6 hours.  Given that each user will navigate about 5 pages of a useful site, that’s only 1,300 users.  That’s more than enough for any ‘personal site’, but for a serious website, that will not cut it. 

            You may be asking where I am going with this.  My answer is simple, get burstable bandwidth.  Why pay for a 10mbps limit when 15 hours out the day you don’t need it?  This site is hosted with 1Tb of monthly transfer, but it’s also got a 100mbit internet connection.  When searching for a host, look for one that will provide an upgradeable monthly transfer limit, but also a high speed internet connection. 

            In the coming weeks, we’ll dive further into the broad scope of website performance, and how to combat these challenges without breaking the bank.  In the next installment, we will discuss the difference between page load times, and page generation times, and some steps you can take to minimize page generation times. 

All About Speed - Part 2 (Generation Time)

All About Speed - Part 3 (HTML)

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