HP WebQos Peak for Solaris® Concepts and Operation Guide

10 Chapter1
Overview
What is HP WebQoS Peak?
What is HP WebQoS Peak?
HP WebQoS Peak is a software plug-in (module), which runs inside an
HTTP server. The HTTP server currently supported is Netscape
Enterprise Server. HP WebQoS can be configured to make certain
decisions based on changing system conditions. For example, it can
admit, reject, or defer newsessions based on system load, or to end active
sessions based on the interval between requests and/or the length of a
session. In addition, HP WebQoS maintains several operation and
performance statistics which can be viewed in a Web client window.
Viewing the Server Statistics
The HP WebQoS maintains a series of statistics, which can be inspected
on-line by pointing your web client (browser) to the following URL:
/hpac/about.hpac (or just /hpac/). From the about.hpac page you can
access either the Statistics table, or the Isolate table, by selecting
the appropriate link. You can also view an explanation of what each
statistic means, by selecting the field name.
What is a Session?
A session is an HTTP request or sequence of HTTP requests made to a
web server by a single user. A simple session might consist of a request
for a server’s home page. If that page contains images, the session would
also consist of requests for each image.
A more complicated and longer session might consist of a request for a
server’s home page, following a link to a catalog, browsing the catalog
and adding items to a shopping cart, and finally supplying payment
information to complete a purchase.
When Does a Web Server Become Overloaded?
A web server becomes overloaded when there are too many requests for
the server to fulfill; the server runs out of resources. Requests may be
delayed or dropped. For example, a user involved in a long session may
experience poor performance or may have to reload a page more than
once for it to display.