COMP 7680 Internet and World Wide Web Term Paper: Management of Web Server System for Robustness Hard Deadline: 6 December 2013, 11:55pm
Description
A company is running a web server system to support its online business. Its income primarily comes from this online business. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that the web server system is robust. For example, when there are hardware failures (e.g., disk failures) or unfavourable incidents (e.g., electricity shutdown), the web site should still be operational. Suppose you are the IT Manager in the above company. In this term paper, you describe how you would manage the computer and human resources to ensure that the above web server system is robust. Specifically, you are required to address this problem from the following perspectives: 1. Automatic monitoring (e.g., monitor the server status and alert the staff when there is any server failure) 2. Equipment redundancy 3. Data redundancy 4. Manpower redundancy 5. Other redundancy (such as electricity and Internet connection) 6. Server room configuration For each perspective, you identify the possible problems, describe how you would prevent these problems from happening, and propose the actions that you would take when these problems arise. Example: You may tackle “data redundancy” as follows:    Problem identified: When a hard disk fails, the company loses its data. When the lost data is important (e.g., business transaction data), the company suffers from significant loss. Preventing problem: Adopt various backup strategies for the data (describing the details of each backup strategy and analyzing its advantages and disadvantages). Planned action: When a hard disk fails, replace it by a backup hard disk which is of the same model and stores the backup data.

Hint: In this course, you have studied some relevant concepts, methods and case studies. In