ESPN Case Study

On this assignment we had to watch a video about ESPN and to answer questions.

1)How many requests from users does ESPN receive each second? Do you think this is a consistent pattern or does it have peaks and valleys? When does it peak?

ESPN receive each second 10 000 requests, I think it does have peaks like during the wordl cup or huge sport events for instance.

2)Why does ESPN store personal information and preferences on its databases and how does this personal information complicate the ability of ESPN to respond to requests from users? Why can’t ESPN just use Web page caching to handle the loads?

ESPN store the private information and preferences on his database to have a personalize offer. It complicates a little bit ESPN because it has to respond for each consumers and they are millions of users.

3)How much information on users does ESPN store? Why does this pose a challenge for ESPN? Can’t they just use a standard 1 terabyte hard drive from a PC? Why can’t they use a single PC?

ESPN store over 10 million users. On average each user has 5 Kilobytes of data. They can’t use a single PC because the information they put on a computer has to follow up in all the other devices the user is using and one pc does not have the ability to handle it.

4)What platforms do ESPN customers use when access their Web sites, and how does this further complicate ESPN’s processing picture?

Customers are using espn.com or with application. It's complicated for ESPN because they must adapt for each platform

5) What are the key components in ESPN’s solution? Describe the function of each.

The grid : Using IBM websphere It loads 12 million fans with 40% room to grow It has no sweat to handle 15 000 requests per second CPU goes below 5 % all the time, it's extremely fast.

The composer : Is dealing with all services. The requests come to the composer then it goes to the grid then it goes to the existing services and they get the personalized content.

6)Why is scalability so important to ESPN?

It takes 3 month from production to conception and it permits to keep their place on the market and follow the actual trends.