BBC on Website Slow Downs

HiveMaster writes "The BBC is carrying a report about the impact on websites as people try to get news regarding the war in Iraq. It talks of a report from Keynote Systems, which tests the reponsiveness of websites, which shows that the BBC news site has shown a fourfold increase in response times. However, Government sites in both the US and the UK are being hit, with the US Army site taking over 80 seconds to load at peak times." Also, here is a press release this. You can also read My journal where I've talked quite a bit about what Slashdot has done in preperation for traffic bursts.

Comments

and it won't get any better...

[babyblink]

since you just slashdot it...

Satellite availability?

[caseyc]

Another factor that may be contributing to this is a sudden drop in availability of communications satellites. The Department of Defense has been buying up bandwidth on commercial com satellites for their own use during the war.

Re:Satellite availability?

[stef0x77]

Most of the net traffic, particularly across the atlantic travels on under-sea cables. Satellites are ususally used for remote areas or backup comnunications, due to latency and bandwidth issues.

Put a proxy-cache in front of it.

[iturbide]

Basically, as long as you don't get a bandwith problem, putting a proxy-cache configured for acceleration in front of the website itself is the way to go. In times like this, 95% of the visitors wants the same news. The cache will serve them their data, so that the server itself does not die under the load of having to rethink every individual request.

Light pages

[rednaxel]

This shows the importance of light pages. The wide use of broad band has led many to ignore old guidelines. There's a lot of bloated pages with tons of ill-optimized pics and unnecessary gadgets.

According this, the average web page is around 90 Kb. Google is a little over 10 Kb.

Re:Hmmm...

[Kircle]

nope, but an interesting side effect could probably be more ad impressions and as a result, more revenue. honestly, /. could easily get more advertising impressions if they started temporarily mirroring the content from the stories posted on slashdot. everyone knows about the slashdot effect. why not use that in a manner where both slashdot and slashdot readers benefit?

Re:Fourfold!??

[CheeseburgerBlue]

The use of the term "fourfold" itself nails the headline as coming from the BBC.

A more North American slant would have been something pithier like "lots mucher."

thanks

[Lxy]

Slashdot team:

I know I'll be unpopular by saying this, but thanks for all the hard work. You guys have a lot of experience handling rediculous loads, so when stuff like this comes around, /. stands firm. While the rest of the internet is slowing to a crawl, I can depend on pretty nice response times from you. On Sept 11, /. was one of the only news sites that was actually responding. When I can't get a TV, I'll be checking /. for war coverage. I know a lot of people are complaining that war isn't "News for Nerds", but it most certainly is news and I'm glad /. has stepped up to the call of duty on this one.