ad info

CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 ASIANOW
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
   computing
   personal technology
   space
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 custom news
 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast
 pagenet

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:
Computing

House staffer frets over bandwidth, format of Starr report

September 10, 1998
Web posted at 5:15 PM EDT

by Sandra Gittlen

From...

(IDG) -- Friday, Sharon Hammersla could find herself in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky affair. The low-profile Congressional systems administrator has to figure out how to serve up millions of copies of Kenneth Starr's report over the Web.

House of Representatives leaders said today they may put the independent counsel's 445-page report up on the Internet. Hammersla, computer systems coordinator for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, is scrambling to figure out a way to do it.

QUICK VOTE:

Where will you read Ken Starr's report?

On the Internet In print
View Results

Hammersla hopes to set up a series of mirror sites to handle the anticipated demand. Her list currently includes Web servers run by the House, the House Judiciary Committee and the Library of Congress. She hopes to have two more on board by tomorrow's House Rules Committee vote on whether to make the document public.

"We get 200,000 hits a month at a non-busy time, but there's no way to tell how many hits we'll take with this," she said. Hammersla was uneasy about even guessing. After all, she said, the whole country will want to access this.

MORE COMPUTING INTELLIGENCE
  IDG.net home page
  Network World Fusion home page
 Free registration required to access Network World
  Free Network World Fusion newsletters
  Get Media Grok and The Industry Standard Intelligencer delivered for free
 Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net
    IDG.net's bridges & routers page
  IDG.net's hubs & switches page
    IDG.net's network operating systems page
  IDG.net's network management software page
  IDG.net's personal news page
  Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you
  Search IDG.net in 12 languages
  Subscribe to IDG.net's free daily newsletter for network experts
 News Radio
  Fusion audio primers
  Computerworld Minute
     

An example of what could happen occurred earlier this year when a Massachusetts judge announced plans to release his verdict in the British au pair case on the Web. The mere announcement was enough to crash his designated server -- people began hitting the site days before he actually released his decision.

Hammersla said the House site is served by a single Unix box running Netscape's Web server. She said the House Judiciary Committee has the same configuration. She could not comment on the Library of Congress setup.

The Library of Congress site receives millions of requests daily, she said. "It can handle it."

But first Hammersla has to figure out how to make the document Web-ready. Because she has not received a copy -- it is under lock and key by the House Sergeant at Arms -- she doesn't know whether it is in electronic form or on paper. "Obviously if it's in electronic form, we can just put it in HTML and throw it up there," she said. If not, then Hammersla said the document will have to be scanned and put into Portable Document Format (PDF). She said her system is able to scan 30 pages per minute so that will not take too long, but trying to set it up online will be more difficult.

"It's hard to know the size of the document or if there's a logical break so that we can offer it in parts," she said.

However large each part of the document is, Hammersla admitted that serving up PDF files would weigh on the servers.

"We're planning ahead as much as we can," she said.

Hammersla said an intranet site is being set up for House and Senate requests. "[Congressmen] will need quick access to the document" and can't be forced to wait for the inherent slowdowns of a public Web site, she said.

Sandra Gittlen in an online reporter at Network World Fusion.

Related stories:
Latest Headlines

Today on CNN

Related IDG.net stories:

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window Related sites:

External sites are not
endorsed by CNN Interactive.

SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

   
 

Back to the top
© 2000 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.