More and more companies are experiencing a need to effectively manage ever-changing content on high-traffic Web sites. These high-traffic sites receive as many as 1 million hits per day and require significant amounts of technical and financial support. The question of how to create a cost-effective, efficient system to support these sites has fueled a debate among IT professionals over the value of delivering them dynamically versus statically.

Dynamic sites - sites that pull and assemble content stored in a repository - are easy to customize and capable of providing rapidly changing content. These sites provide the richest feature set for contributors and are easier and cheaper to build and manage. However, a high-traffic dynamic site requires hefty investments in software and hardware to support the high consumption requirements. And, as the site grows, so do the costs of additional equipment and staff to manage the site's burgeoning content and increasing traffic.

On the other hand, static sites - sites built and delivered with HTML code - are capable of handling more traffic with less hardware and software. Static sites are cheaper to deploy and generally have the highest guarantee for both the consumers' response time and overall availability. However, they tend to be much more difficult to service behind the scenes. For example, because changes to content on static sites must be coded in HTML, Web masters, rather than nontechnical employees, must manage all updates, which can cause time-consuming, costly delays in providing fresh content to users.

So how can companies tap the best qualities of dynamic and static sites to efficiently manage a high-traffic Web site? Build the Web site dynamically but deliver it statically.

Dynamically Build a High-Traffic Web Site with XML
Companies using a Web content management (WCM) system to edit and submit content to a high-traffic site that is dynamically built and statically delivered may experience increased efficiencies and savings in time and cost. Following is a description of how the "dynamic creation/static delivery" model works (see Figure 1).

Most Web sites today are made up of parts, with each Web page containing multiple pieces of content. Fundamentally, a Web page consists of four pieces: content fragments, look-and-feel of content, navigation, and look-and-feel of navigation. For a Web site to be manageable, these four pieces have to be separated and managed independently. Simply put, the content contributor should not have to worry about which color schemes to use, while the Web designer should not have to modify, or "re-brand," each Web page after content is contributed.

Almost all of these pieces can be managed as XML. For example, content fragments - generated either by converting content authored in common desktop applications or by capturing data in template-based HTML form - can be stored as XML. Similarly, navigation information, which is usually hierarchical, can be stored as XML. And, a Web page's layout can be driven by XSL files, and its color scheme can be driven by XML or Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) files. All of these pieces can be assembled into a dynamic Web site using standard technologies, such as ASP, .NET, and JSP.

In-Context Contribution, Preview, and Workflow
A fundamental aim of the "dynamic creation/static delivery" model is to simplify the contribution and content-approval process for nontechnical contributors while providing a fast and scalable static site for general consumers.

An underlying WCM system enables contributors to navigate to any section of the Web site and edit content within certain Web pages. For instance, a company's public-relations person should be able to log in to the dynamic Web site; navigate to the "Press Releases" section; and click a button or link to add a new press release. Similarly, a customer-support staff member should be able to navigate to the "Knowledge Base" section of the Web site, and click a button or link to add a frequently asked question (FAQ). Contributors can "Preview" their changes in real time, in full context of the entire page, and even in full context of the entire site, when a particular change affects more than one page.

In addition, security permissions built into a WCM system dictate contributors' rights to edit content on Web pages. For example, when a Web page has two content fragments, one person may be able to edit the first fragment, while another person may be able to edit both of them based purely on their security privileges. This method of editing content from within the context of the Web site is referred to as "In-Context Contribution." Application code in the Web site ensures that all content is converted to XML, if necessary, and tagged with appropriate metadata.

In this model, workflow capabilities of the WCM system should also be exposed via the Web site. Application code in the Web site should ensure that members of a workflow are able to preview content in full context of the Web site, as well as approve or reject content right from the Web page. A dynamic site is the cornerstone to "In-Context Contribution," "Preview," and "In-Context Workflow" since it would not be practical to have a static rendition of a Web site for every piece of content in workflow at any given time.

With these WCM features in place, contributors can efficiently add content to the Web site; content and editorial errors can be reduced significantly, if not eliminated completely; and accurate content can be added to a Web site in a timely fashion.

Static Consumption
Once a Web site has been dynamically populated with content, a static version of the site needs to be captured, and the static Web pages need to be deployed to the Web servers running the Web site.

Publishing and deployment software offered by some WCM vendors have the ability to capture static versions of dynamic sites. However, before adopting such software, it is important to ensure the technology has the capability to run on demand, on a scheduled basis, or both. In addition, the software should be capable of capturing either complete sites or only sections of a site. The software also should be able to distribute content to all assigned Web servers, either directly from the content management repository or from a file system.

Another important feature to look for in publishing and deployment software is "guaranteed delivery" - the ability to push content updates out to all assigned Web servers but withhold the updates from all of the servers if deployment to one server fails. This feature ensures content consistency in load-balanced or fail-over environments. Finally, the ability to run incremental deployment cycles is also important. With this feature, only pages that have changed since the last deployment cycle are pushed out to Web servers.

Benefits of Building Dynamically and Publishing Statically
The dynamic creation/static delivery model taps the best qualities of dynamic and static sites to efficiently manage a high-traffic Web site. The dynamic contribution environment enables contributors to efficiently submit and edit content on the site, while the static version ensures rapid delivery to the general public.

Using XML for such a deployment helps in the separation of content from branding and navigation, enabling the reuse of content and simplified Web site management. For example, content updates do not require Webmaster or developer involvement. These advantages are noticeably absent in static sites, where content, layout, and branding are intermingled.

Since the dynamic Web site in the dynamic creation/static delivery model caters to a small audience, the infrastructure needed to maintain it is significantly smaller than what is needed for a public-facing dynamic site. Therefore, companies experience significant cost savings. A single WCM-based dynamic site developed using JSP technology and running on an application server or servlet engine can easily support tens to hundreds of content contributors. This same Web site could be deployed statically on a similar-size server and support millions of consumers since the static delivery of a site allows for a smaller and easier-to-manage infrastructure. For instance, a 2GHz, single-processor Windows server can deliver roughly 500 static HTML pages per second, which equates to about 1.8 million pages served in one hour.

Finally, Web content management packages used in this model offer numerous benefits. Features such as workflow, conversion of content to XML, and template creation and assembly tools play a crucial role. Out-of-the-box capabilities for in-context editing and workflow ease the contribution process and reduce development costs. And, on-demand publishing and regularly scheduled publishing cycles ensure that content on the public-facing Web site is always up to date.

Dynamic vs Static Delivery - Consult Your Bottom Line
As companies consider whether to deliver their high-traffic sites dynamically or statically, it's best to consult the bottom line, as the long-term gains from using the dynamic creation/static delivery model outweigh initial investments.

Web sites built and delivered using this model enable anyone to contribute content quickly and efficiently to the site, which reduces staff costs and dramatically increases staff efficiency and productivity. Moreover, content is updated with high levels of security and built-in corporate guidelines and style sheets, reducing costly, time-consuming errors.

But perhaps most important, the millions of valuable visitors and customers who use high-traffic sites every day see fresh, up-to-date content, increasing the chance of repeat visits and/or online purchases, as well as improved brand loyalty.

Blockbuster Entertainment Studio Taps Dynamic Creation/Static Delivery Model to Manage Popular Web Site

One of the largest entertainment studios in the world uses the dynamic creation/static deliveryZ approach to simplify and expedite frequent updates to a Web site for its various products, including movies, home videos, and DVDs. The site regularly has 4-6 million visitors per week and more than 10 million hits per day. All of this activity is handled by two dual processor servers, neither of which is fully utilized.

By using this approach, the studio has reaped significant time and cost savings because the system allows nontechnical employees, rather than a few IT staff members, to add and change information to the site. This approach not only serves the dynamic needs of contributors, but also the high-volume needs of consumers, all the while reaping the benefits of low hardware and software requirements. Best of all, the visitors to the studio's site see relevant, up-to-date content.

The studio has 30 content producers, ranging from graphic designers to content editors, who contribute information to the site. Using a content management system, the content producers use simple updating mechanisms, such as pre-built templates; in-context editing; and automatic conversion and publishing capabilities to easily create and maintain content on the studio's Web site - without relying on IT staff.

When dynamically building its Web site, the studio has one production instance of the dynamic site, which is written in JSP and uses XML and XSLT to display content for the contributors. To ensure that the site is updated regularly, the studio has scheduled deployment of the dynamic site to each static rendition for general consumption. The studio's static site also can be updated on demand.