Rating: 
Summary: Not for NT/2000
Review: Not much in the book if you are looking for info. on NT/2000 based systems. A lot of the content is basic, and may not be helpful to serious/experienced users.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for the beginner to the seasoned Internet professional
Review: O'Reilly and Patrick Killelea make a great team. Patrick covers tuning from the ground up, both on the browser and on the server. While he is slanted towards Unix (particularly Solaris) the concepts he presents are invaluable on every platform. Shops not familiar with tuning, high availability and load balancing will get a good education very quickly and be well on their way to tweaking server configurations and IP stacks. If there had been a section on advanced concepts (more in-depth on clustering, balancing, etc.) it would have rated 5 stars! A "must-have" reference for even the most seasoned Webmaster.
Rating: 
Summary: Patrick Has Done It Again!
Review: Patrick has not only written a fabulouse book but he is an awsome guy! ... His book is really great for a person who wants to know about computers. I happened to read the version ... and it was so well written that even then I could understand the details of computer programming! In conclusion JUST BUY THE STUPID BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: Classic O'Reilly marred by thin dynamic web coverage
Review: Pragmatic and opinionated in the best of old-time O'Reilly style, this book is a colorful guided tour by an old-hand. The thing is, if you need this book, your website is probably a high-traffic professional/commercial site. And in these days this means (1) dynamic content, (2) database, (3) a content-management/templating system, (4) user identity tracking. Perhaps even interface to legacy client/server systems. Unfortunately, this book goes only as far as CGI, Java, and general DB issues. Messaging middleware is briefly considered. Distributed OO (CORBA, EJB) is discussed and dismissed (a luxury in real world). No coverage of other popular dynamic web technologies (e.g. ASP, ColdFusion) or content-management systems. In particular, a serious discussion of trade-offs between performance and content/workflow manageability would ground the whole discussion in real life. And the architecture chapter, while very insightful, is simply too thin. After all it is much better and easier to plan for performance from the start, then to try tweaking an existing system. The chapter discusses architectures of varying complexity - <i>without including a single diagram!</i> Complete case studies along the line of the mod_perl white paper .... would be invaluable - perhaps broken down by type (e.g. news/portal/B2C) where unique usage patterns will drive unique architecture and optimization. Despite the tilt towards monitoring and diagnosis, this is still a very valuable book in an under-served but important area. Generous references enable the reader to explore individual topics further.
Rating:
Summary: Classic O'Reilly marred by thin dynamic web coverage
Review: Pragmatic and opinionated in the best of old-time O'Reilly style, this book is a colorful guided tour by an old-hand. The thing is, if you need this book, your website is probably a high-traffic professional/commercial site. And in these days this means (1) dynamic content, (2) database, (3) a content-management/templating system, (4) user identity tracking. Perhaps even interface to legacy client/server systems. Unfortunately, this book goes only as far as CGI, Java, and general DB issues. Messaging middleware is briefly considered. Distributed OO (CORBA, EJB) is discussed and dismissed (a luxury in real world). No coverage of other popular dynamic web technologies (e.g. ASP, ColdFusion) or content-management systems. In particular, a serious discussion of trade-offs between performance and content/workflow manageability would ground the whole discussion in real life. And the architecture chapter, while very insightful, is simply too thin. After all it is much better and easier to plan for performance from the start, then to try tweaking an existing system. The chapter discusses architectures of varying complexity - without including a single diagram! Complete case studies along the line of the mod_perl white paper .... would be invaluable - perhaps broken down by type (e.g. news/portal/B2C) where unique usage patterns will drive unique architecture and optimization. Despite the tilt towards monitoring and diagnosis, this is still a very valuable book in an under-served but important area. Generous references enable the reader to explore individual topics further.
Rating:
Summary: A classic reference for every engineers library
Review: Published in 1998, this book is one of the best for web performance testing, covering the technical basics for everything you need to know in order to really understand performance tuning. It includes such required information as definitions of various performance metrics, and what those should be in the real world, and moves along through networks, hardware, and operating systems. It goes to great pains to cover a variety of systems, including Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and a variety of web servers. Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
http://www.webperformanceinc.com
Rating:
Summary: A classic reference for every engineers library
Review: Published in 1998, this book is one of the best for web performance testing, covering the technical basics for everything you need to know in order to really understand performance tuning. It includes such required information as definitions of various performance metrics, and what those should be in the real world, and moves along through networks, hardware, and operating systems. It goes to great pains to cover a variety of systems, including Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and a variety of web servers. Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
http://www.webperformanceinc.com
Rating:
Summary: Good tips, needs an update
Review: The book contains a lot of great (albeit basic) information on improving web server performance. As far as addressing specific servers, you're better off getting documentation written for your server. But again, some good general information is here. I specifically found the information on traffic analysis useful. Any software package will pump out numbers, but I wasn't always clear on what they meant in terms of ideal hardware and software performance. The one drawback is that the book was written over two years ago and is in need of an update. CGI and Java are covered, but it's short on performance information for other dynamic content.
Rating:
Summary: Concise, complete, and credible
Review: This book is both a great reference and superb introductory guide to the essentials of tuning a web site. All the elements are covered, with chapters on client hardware, network protocols, and server software to name a few. How each element affects performance is discussed along with a description of tools to monitor and tune performance. The chapter on content should be required reading for anyone putting together HTML pages no matter how large their site. The prose is readable and each chapter is nicely summarized with several concise "Key Recommendations". Unless you are building your own web site from scratch, you won't have to know everything in this book, but you may want to anyway, if for no other reason than to know who to blame when your web site is not performing well. As the web is changing every day some of the information is dated, especially the chapters on running server side applications. The chapter on CGI is decent, but the chapters on database and Java tuning are cursory and best covered by books dedicated to those subjects. There is nothing on active server pages. Also a chapter on balancing security versus performance would have been welcome, and hopefully will be included in a second edition. There is definitely more about UNIX than NT in the book. This doesn't matter when doing hardware and network tuning and Microsoft certainly does not help with their license restriction on the publication of IIS benchmarks. The reality is that there are more web servers running UNIX or Linux variants than NT. However, with the rapid proliferation of active server pages more should be included on NT in a future edition. Getting usable information on performance tuning is sometimes very difficult. Such information is usually gleaned sparingly from Usenet groups or expensively from consultants. "Web Performance Tuning" is a solid guide with a lot of information condensed and indexed that would be difficult to find elsewhere. It is definitely remaining on the easy to reach side of my bookcase.
Rating:
Summary: Is not just server performance tuning you know...
Review: This is one book with wide appeal because it is useful to anyone that uses the Internet; so if you are reading this review - chances are very good that you will find this book of some use. The subtitle sums up the book very nicely... it is full of tips to help you speed up the web, regardless of how you usually go about using it. I've had the pleasure of owning both copies of Web Performance Tuning and I must say the second edition was quite a dramatic rewrite, adding over 100 pages of new and updated information - it was about time for an update considering the age of the book. Of course, if you are both a web user and a web developer you will derive the most benefit as pretty much everything in the book will apply to you to some degree. Part I focuses on detailing the problems that can occur, and only the first chapter has any useful information for anyone who is simply the web visitor. But if you've got any interest in knowing about server and connection failures and monitoring web performance then it would be worth taking a look at. Part II of Web Performance Tuning actually looks at how you can improve your web experience; starting from the browser and working all the way through to the technologies that power the web. This makes it easy to follow as well as to help identify exactly where any major problems you may be experiencing are caused. For those wanting quick answers to their browsing or server problems, then you will find help in the form of questions you might want to ask yourself right at the start of the book. I preferred the old way this quick reference was done, as it was a list of recommendations rather than a list of questions; you don't know you have a problem if you don't know the questions to ask!
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