Demand Dec. 5 fell just short of the weather.com peak-hit record set during Hurricane Isabel last fall, but Agronow believes the East Coast storm this week could set a new record (no doubt to be buried by peak hits during the next hurricane season).
Agronow says weather.com decided to refresh its business technology last fall when a two-year server lease expired. The company looked at various tier-one and tier-two server vendors before choosing Dell. To date, weather.com has installed 120 PowerEdge servers running SuSE Linux to handle Web-application functions. Additional Dell servers are expected to be added throughout the year, he says.
At the same time, Agronow moved weather.com's database apps to eight IBM eServer 325s using Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
The new server infrastructure has increased weather.com's performance by 25%, he says.
Weather.com access speed still can fluctuate depending on the day and time, Agronow says. On weekends, when there is less traffic, access time might be 1.5 seconds, but peak demand can lengthen that to 2.75 seconds.
Discover the benefits of scalable backbone and network services for application and cloud providers.
Network automation is gaining momentum. Here's how you can drive this powerful technology to its full potential.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
