Planning Your Proxy Server Implementation
By Donald Rohrbacher
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Planning Your Proxy Server Implementation
A key factor in determining the success of any installation is planning. Planning involves several phases-from understanding your current capabilities, to determining your current needs, anticipating your future needs, and, ultimately, finding a viable solution. We have all been in situations where the immediate need surpassed the need for planning and the installation was rushed. More often than not, the installation had to be repeated to correct problems. Microsoft stresses successful planning techniques, both to ease the initial installation and as a preventative troubleshooting task.
The Site Analysis Process
A key consideration of planning future network capacity is determining what services, users, and data will be present on the network. Take the time to complete a thorough site analysis. A bit of formal analysis now will ease the process of upgrading and configuring the system later. Don't succumb to the "easy way out." Planning can be a long and arduous task that is overlooked far too often, but one that pays off ultimately. Network Capacity Analysis
The capacity of a network is that network's ability to support the amount of data transmitted over it. A network that can support the activity of your organization today may not be able to support the increased activity level when Internet access is offered via Proxy Server. You need to carefully consider the performance ramifications of adding new information services to an already overtaxed network.
Although Proxy Server's ability to cache resources saves on performance over the Internet communication link, it does not decrease the amount of data ultimately transferred to the client. Even if 100 percent of requested data is stored in the proxy server's cache, it will still be sent across your local network to the client computer, increasing network traffic significantly.
The first
___________________________________________
Planning Your Proxy Server Implementation
A key factor in determining the success of any installation is planning. Planning involves several phases-from understanding your current capabilities, to determining your current needs, anticipating your future needs, and, ultimately, finding a viable solution. We have all been in situations where the immediate need surpassed the need for planning and the installation was rushed. More often than not, the installation had to be repeated to correct problems. Microsoft stresses successful planning techniques, both to ease the initial installation and as a preventative troubleshooting task.
The Site Analysis Process
A key consideration of planning future network capacity is determining what services, users, and data will be present on the network. Take the time to complete a thorough site analysis. A bit of formal analysis now will ease the process of upgrading and configuring the system later. Don't succumb to the "easy way out." Planning can be a long and arduous task that is overlooked far too often, but one that pays off ultimately. Network Capacity Analysis
The capacity of a network is that network's ability to support the amount of data transmitted over it. A network that can support the activity of your organization today may not be able to support the increased activity level when Internet access is offered via Proxy Server. You need to carefully consider the performance ramifications of adding new information services to an already overtaxed network.
Although Proxy Server's ability to cache resources saves on performance over the Internet communication link, it does not decrease the amount of data ultimately transferred to the client. Even if 100 percent of requested data is stored in the proxy server's cache, it will still be sent across your local network to the client computer, increasing network traffic significantly.
The first