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Behind the Scenes:A guide to Web site infrastructure
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.
[email protected]://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
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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)
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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
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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
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Why is a sound layout desirable?
A sound layout facilitates:
• Site maintenance• Site access management• Site consistency• Site scalability
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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
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Thinking about maintenance...
Tools and techniques to maintain a Web site:• Infrastructure• User feedback• Metadata• Server log files• Integrity - link checking
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Thinking about access...
You will need to manage:• Users• Authors• Robots
• even your own site index robot
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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
Thinking about design...
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Approaches: HierarchyConceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example
www.ourlib.ac.uk
Information
Catalogue
Services
Joining InstructionsMusic
Opening Times
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Reference Library
Children'sHow to renew books
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Approaches: HierarchyConceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example
www.ourlib.ac.uk
Information
Catalogue
Services
Joining Instructions
Music
Opening Times
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Reference Library
Children's
How to renew books
Top Level Headings
Lower Levels
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www.ourlib.ac.uk
Information
Catalogue
Services
Joining Instructions
Music
Opening Times
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Reference Library
Children's
How to renew books
Top Level Headings
Lower Levels
Approaches: HierarchyConceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example
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Approaches: HierarchyConceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example
www.ourlib.ac.uk
Information
Catalogue
Services
Joining Instructions
Music
Opening Times
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Reference Library
Children's
How to renew books
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www.ourlib.ac.uk
Information
Catalogue
Services
Joining Instructions
Music
Opening Times
Local Studies
Mobile Library
Reference Library
Children's
How to renew books
1 file
directories
Approaches: HierarchyConceptual Hierarchy: A simple library example
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Approaches: HierarchyFile Hierarchy: A simple library example
/
/information/
/catalogue/
/services/
index.html
...
/mobile/
/reference/
index.html
index.html
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/
/information/
/catalogue/
/services/
index.html
...
/mobile/
/reference/
index.html
index.html
/renew/
index.cgi
Approaches: HierarchyFile Hierarchy: A simple library example
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• Reflects the design and navigation of the site
• Use folders to group related content• Avoid local jargon• Make URLs logical• Put ‘index.html’ everywhere
Approaches: Hierarchy
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• ‘Relative’ internal linksIn file: www.ourlib.gov.uk/search/index.htmlLink: <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
Approaches: Hierarchy
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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
Approaches: Hierarchy
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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
Approaches: Hierarchy
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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Approaches: Templates and SSIs
• Identify the ‘elements’ of your Web site defined by the template
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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/
/catalogue/
/services/
index.html
...
/mobile/
/reference/
index.html
index.html
/site/
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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
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• 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
User
GET: /index.html
Web server
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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• 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
User
GET: /index.html
/index.html
Web server
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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• 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
User
GET: /index.html
/index.html
<!--#include file=“/site/nav.ssi”-->
Web server
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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• 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
User
GET: /index.html
/index.html /site/*
Web serverVirtualPage
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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Advantages:• Changes to a handful of files effect the
whole site• Repeated content only stored once• Almost a database...
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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Disadvantages:• Access management
• restricted by the file system• No ‘management system’• Cannot easily output other formats - XML,
WML, RSS, etc.
Approaches: Templates and SSIs
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Approaches: Databases: Users
Users
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Approaches: Databases: Users
DBMS
Web Interface
Users
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Approaches: Databases: Users
ContentData
TemplateData
Web Interface
Users
DBMS
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Approaches: Databases: Authors
ContentData
TemplateData
DBMS
Web Interface
Author
Author
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Approaches: Databases: Admin
ContentData
TemplateData
DBMS
Web Interface
Administrator
Administrator
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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Behind the Scenes:A guide to Web site infrastructure
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.
[email protected]://www.ukoln.ac.uk/