An Inside Look at How MTV Delivers Rich and Compelling Delivers Rich and Compelling Web Experiences

Rob Roskin, Manager of Operations, MTV Networks

Imad Mouline, CTO, Gomez

Today’s Web Teams Face Tough Challenges

High User Expectations

New Technology Requirements

Recession Realities

Performance Transparency

Today’s Web Teams Face Tough Challenges

…so how can you succeed?

An Inside Look at How MTV Delivers Rich and Compelling Web Rich and Compelling Web Experiences

Rob Roskin, Mgr. Operations, MTV Networks

Who is MTV?

▪ MTV Networks is…

▪ MTVN Entertainment Group▪ Adult-focused programming and online content and

games for primarily male audiences, 18–34.

▪ MTVN Kids & Family Group▪ Educational and entertaining programs and websites

for kids, 2–17, and their families. for kids, 2 17, and their families.

▪ MTVN Music & Logo Group▪ Music and pop culture brands generally targeting Music and pop culture brands, generally targeting

men and women, 18–34.

▪ MTVN InternationalMTVN International▪ Multimedia entertainment brands seen in 160

countries and 33 languages around the world.

MTV Operations Environment

▪ Team of 8 monitoring 865 tests across 150 websites, from 2 data centers, 24/7

▪ Flash, PHP, .NET Technologies

▪ Dozens of different 3rd Party Vendors (Ads, Analytics, Content, etc.)

▪ Ongoing measurements against external and internal SLAsinternal SLAs

MTV Operations 2009 Goals

▪ Improve site availability to 99.7% as measured externally

▪ Continuously improve web page and application performance and application performance over base-lined response times

▪ Improve streaming Flash video performance for end-users

MTV Operations’ Challenges

1 Keeping business & IT/operations aligned on web 1. Keeping business & IT/operations aligned on web performance

2. Making wise vendor and infrastructure ginvestments—especially in tough times

3. Enhancing the user experience with new h l h l ftechnologies while maintaining top performance

4. Always being ready for the next challenge—MTV’s users always expect the latest and MTV s users always expect the latest and greatest

… so how do we do it?

MTV Operations’ Best Practices

1 Proactively communicate to stakeholders 1. Proactively communicate to stakeholders across the organization

1. Proactively communicate to stakeholders in the organization

▪ ISSUE: The business, who often initiates site h d t b f f It i changes, needs to be aware of performance. It is

up to the Operations team to deliver information.

▪ What does MTV do?▪ Proactively works with business to define

metrics and goals▪ Customize reports to meet executive needs

Monitor competitors to understand industry ▪ Monitor competitors to understand industry position and share with business stakeholders▪ Report on performance regularly for both p p g y

major & minor changes

Customize Reports to Meet Executives’ Needs

Hi h l l t High-level summary reports give the business the insight they require. More detailed reports are for operations & t h l technology managers.

Watch the Competition & Share Rankings

I 2 8 d Is a 2.8 second response time good if competitors beat us by 1 second?... In light of our page sizes?

Benchmark reports show Executives how MTV performs relative to competitors & showcases IT service delivery quality.

Monitor Performance When Changes Occur

New & heavier Shockwave.com released

New release with similar response times

Old Shockwave.com results

Monitor Performance When Changes Occur

N & h i Larger page delivered at same or faster speed and with New & heavier

Shockwave.com released here.

or faster speed and with improved consistency highlights hardware efficiency.

MTV Operations’ Best Practices

l1. Proactively communicate across stakeholders in the organization

2. Don’t waste a penny

2. Don’t Waste a Penny

▪ ISSUE: Need to maximize performance, minimize bandwidth usage and get the most out of every bandwidth usage, and get the most out of every vendor dollar… all with shrinking budgets

▪ What does MTV do?▪ Routinely evaluate your investments in

vendors like CDNsvendors like CDNs

▪ Conduct ongoing capacity planning from the end-users’ perspectiveend-users perspective▪ Watch the small stuff (persistent connections,

first byte time)

▪ Cache what you can to keep the number of calls down

Routinely Evaluate Vendor Investments

Ongoing tracking of CDN vendor performance lets vendor performance lets us track the quality of service that we originally contracted for.

Conduct Ongoing Capacity Planning in Virtual Environments

MTV’s virtual environment allows First byte time are a key

health indicator Times shown us to add capacity quickly but requires constant monitoring.

health indicator. Times shown here are a warning that MTV servers are “underwater”.

First Byte Time Defined — The time between initial connection and receiving the First Packet (a.k.a. first byte) for an object, page, image

Watch the Small Stuff

Sh t f fi t b t ti t Shoot for first byte times to be less than 0.10 seconds.

Use Persistent Connections to save time.

Cache What You Can

100

C h 90% f t t90

Cache 90% of content f th i i

80

from the origin“Break apart” the page to

70Break apart the page to

identify what can be cached.60

50

MTV Operations’ Best Practices

l k h ld1. Proactively communicate to stakeholders in the organization

2. Don’t waste a penny

3. Conquer new technologies intelligently

3. Conquer New Technologies Intelligently

▪ ISSUE: User expectations have increased, and the b i t t h th i business wants to enhance the user experience with the latest and greatest technologies.

▪ What does MTV do?▪ Have a plan and monitor when possiblep p▪ Define new metrics as needed

▪ Balance cost vs. reward with new technologies▪ Keep end-user performance in mind from the

beginning

Have a Plan & Monitor Where Possible

New technologies may require new metrics

New questions come up with streaming content like “Is a stream available if it q

such as “start-up time” and “rebuffer ratio” to evaluate performance.

takes too long to start-up for end-users?”

Balance Performance & Costs vs. Technology Rewards

Faster, more consistent start-up times from Global CDN 1 vs. Global CDN 2 are expected based on the level of pinvestment made in each.

Gl b lGlobal CDN 2

Global CDN 1

Keep End-User Performance in Mind From the Beginning

Measure end-user performance Measure end user performance with new technologies and vendors across geographies to identify issues & set Service Level Agreements.Level Agreements.

Plan for Tomorrow, Today

▪ ISSUE: Monitoring and managing the convergence of page content plus video content requires tools of page content plus video content requires tools that are competent and flexible.

▪ MTV ChallengesBusiness Requires Deeper Video Monitoring

▪ Driving for new metric that combines ▪ Driving for new metric that combines page load time + start-up time ▪ Combines webpage and streaming monitoring

metrics taken from end-users point of view

Plan for Tomorrow, Today

PLAN: Work with Gomez to d l d deploy end-user monitoring POC of MTV Flash Video Player of Actual Experience XF ( i it i )(passive monitoring).

3 Hot Topics

1 Availability What does good Availability mean 1. Availability - What does good Availability mean today?

2. Virtualization - When getting started with virtual applications, what should Operations teams look out for?teams look out for?

3. Caching - What is the most effective caching 3. Caching What is the most effective caching technique out there for Web applications?

Hot Topic - Availability

Does 99 999 still exist TODAY on the Web?▪ Does 99.999 still exist TODAY on the Web?

▪ Is the site available if it is accessible? ORIs the site available if it is accessible? ORDoes a visitor have to be able complete a task?

Key Takeaway – It matters where you measureKey Takeaway It matters where you measure availability from and what you set as success criteria.

Hot Topic - Virtualization

When getting started with virtual applications ▪ When getting started with virtual applications, what should Operations teams look out for?

▪ What’s the best way to measure delivery quality of virtual services?

Key Takeaway – Virtualization can be great butKey Takeaway Virtualization can be great but companies need to be ready for:

• Increased management complexity Incident management improvements to see the• Incident management improvements to see the specific causes of failures for end-users

Hot Topic - Caching

What is the most effective caching ▪ What is the most effective caching technique out there for Web applications?

▪ Does caching at the network’s edge vs. using the browser make a big difference?

Key Takeaway – Caching is a very effectiveKey Takeaway Caching is a very effective technique and caching at the browser is very cost effective.

Gomez Offers Full Lifecycle Solutionsfor Web Application Management

“Gomez has made spectacular progress in the last 18 months…to become the leader in web experience management.” Jean-Pierre Garbani, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester ResearchTech Horizons: Evaluating Gomez’s Web Experience Management Services, August 2008

Thank You

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