Web system reliability and performance: design and testing methodologies

Modern Web sites provide multiple services that are deployed through complex technologies. The importance and the economic impact of consumeroriented Web sites introduce significant requirements in terms of performance and reliability. This chapter presents some methods for the design of novel Web sites and for the improvement of existing systems that must satisfy some performance requirements even in the case of unpredictable load variations. The chapter is concluded with a case study that describes the application of the proposed methods to a typical consumeroriented Web site.