Scaling for E-Business

4.1. Introduction

Here is a central question: how can one plan, manage, and evaluate the infrastructure of an electronic business, such as an auction company or an Internet retailer? Or being more specific, is the infrastructure of a certain e-commerce company sized for peak traffic that occurs in the Thanksgiving to Christmas timeframe or is it planned for average annual traffic and less expensive operational costs? Is the infrastructure scalable to cope with customer surges during a sales promotion? By breaking down the complexity of an electronic business, one can analyze the functionality of each component, evaluate service requirements, and design the systems that will execute the functions required by the services. In other words, the answer ...