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Lifetime Entertainment Services, the company behind the popular women's television network Lifetime, was preparing for the launch of a fresh new design for their flagship Web site: LifetimeTV.com. Robert Taylor, Lifetime's IT executive, sought Load Testing services to measure how the new site would impact a user's experience under high load volumes. After utilizing an advanced Load Testing software that produced raw data and results that were questionable, Taylor turned to INetU Managed Hosting's Veraxiom Consulting services to perform an independent Load Test that would confirm LifetimeTV.com would be able to handle its upcoming launch.

Lifetime was working on an advanced timeframe and needed Load Test results within days. Taylor knew that the more in-depth functionality provided by the new LifetimeTV.com Web site would tax his servers more thoroughly than the site's previous version. Speedy performance under increased load conditions is a must for a site like the new LifetimeTV.com, which builds interactive communities among viewers and can experience traffic surges due to calls-to-action on the TV network's commercial programming. Veraxiom was able to roll out the Load Test of LifetimeTV.com in an expedited fashion, assisting Lifetime TV in having the peace of mind they needed to launch on time. "Veraxiom Consulting was incredibly responsive to our needs. The number one thing that stands out to me is their willingness to make themselves available on such short notice. They worked with me through the early morning hours to ensure that they provided me exactly what I needed to launch the new website," states Robert Taylor VP of Information Technology at Liftetime TV.

INetU's Veraxiom Consulting™ Load Test Procedure Provided Lifetime TV With Peace of Mind

Veraxiom Consulting™ has developed a proprietary advanced load testing process that allows its systems architects to provide clients with an accurate measure of how their site will perform under specific load conditions. This process not only simulates traffic patterns, but provides clients with actionable information on how to improve performance by making tweaks to the systems being tested.

The Veraxiom team constructed the load testing a way that allowed the Systems Architect Consultant to review the systems' operation under a realistic high load scenario based on perameters provided by the client. This is an important element; if an analysis is done without a complete understanding of the expected load, the results will not be accurate and will, in turn, provide the client with a false sense of security. The client also provided an outline of common paths through their Web site so that Veraxiom could make sure that the traffic being sent to the client's site patterned itself realistically after user behavior.

The load test results provided Lifetime TV with the reassurance they were seeking. "As the Load Test was being performed, the Veraxiom Systems Architecture Consultant we were working with was already able to identify serious bottlenecks and eliminate them immediately. In addition, he provided us with a very comprehensive report following the completion of the load test," states Taylor.

INetU's Veraxiom Team Goes Above and Beyond

Although the Veraxiom Systems Architects had completed the Load Test as required by Lifetime TV, they chose to look deeper into the site to provide additional value to the client. One of the main goals Veraxiom Consulting™ has with their services is to provide clients with a thorough understanding of their site and its capabilities.

"It is one thing to test a site's performance under high load conditions, but one of the key differentiators that Veraxiom provides with its Load Testing service is that we are able to examine the environment from a holistic perspective - application, server and network - and make targeted recommendations that provide our clients with actionable information to move forward with," said Chris Kivlehan, VP of Sales & Marketing at INetU. "This seperates Veraxiom's service from others that simply provide raw data and force the client to draw their own conclusions about what to do about it."

By spending the extra time on the client's configuration, the System Architects were able to provide final recommendations, allowing Lifetime TV to fully optimize their site and scale as they experience growth.

Final Recommendations from INetU's Veraxiom Team

Having monitored the new LifetimeTV.com under high load conditions, Veraxiom was able to recommend Web page caching and MySQL optimization techniques that, if implemented, would greatly reduce the impact of the site's new functionality on the servers.

The analysis provided by Veraxiom identified behavior patterns on the Lifetime Web servers that pointed to specific areas where the site's core application was developed in was placing an unnecessary strain on the servers that did not in any way help Lifetime Entertainment Services achieve their business objectives. Reducing the amount of times the servers would have to perform these straining functions would have a direct performance benefit that LifetimeTV.com visitors would experience.