All dressed up with no place to go in Los Angeles? No problem. Turn to LA.com and in no time you’ll know exactly where to find great dining, entertainment, shopping, and attractions. Launched in November of 2003 with backing from MediaNews Group, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the United States, LA.com points the way to fun in LA.
Thanks to Apple’s Xserve servers, LA.com is not only the best way to discover LA, it’s also the fastest. “Most of our website visitors do a search to find the type of event, shop, or restaurant they are looking for,” says Jeff Martirano, LA.com’s Director of Information Technology. “They want results to come back quickly and clearly. If our servers couldn’t deliver or our site wasn’t well-designed, people would not return to our site.”
Xserve Total Cost of Ownership Five Times Less
Before beginning to build its website, the LA.com IT team was determined to choose the right combination of servers and operating system. The team evaluated a number of solutions, including servers running either Windows or Linux and the Xserve running Mac OS X Server, a UNIX-based operating system.
After rejecting the Windows-based system because it didn’t work as well with Java, LA.com did a detailed cost analysis comparing the Linux-based servers with the Xserve. Based on hardware costs alone, the Linux-based server was itself slightly less expensive than the Apple Xserve, but after taking total cost of ownership into account, there was no contest. The team found that launching and maintaining the site on Linux-based servers would cost five times more than on Xserve servers.
According to Martirano, “We did detailed estimates of what it would take to get running from both a cost and time perspective using Mac OS X Server and Linux. We found that it would take 60 percent less time to set up the site and 70 percent less time to maintain the site on the Xserve. Basically, the Apple Xserve cost about five times less after taking support, implementation time, and long-term manageability into account, so it was a very significant savings.”
Developing Powerful Websites Faster
Its server technology chosen, LA.com decided to use Apple WebObjects, a tool for developing and deploying Java server applications, to build its website. “WebObjects is a great object-oriented environment, and it scales beautifully,” says Martirano. “Because it lends itself to reuse, it’s a fast way to develop powerful websites. Data and web objects are considered full-fledged objects, meaning you never have to write another line of SQL code again.”
180 Days Without Rebooting
With seven Xserve systems in place, LA.com uses the Apple Xserve for web, application, and database serving and as both development and production servers. Over 300,000 unique visitors use LA.com each month — and many visit daily or weekly. Using the website’s search feature, they are quickly connected to the information they ask for along with related information. Or they can browse the site to learn more about what’s happening in LA. No matter how they use the site, featured information and the accompanying paid advertisements always load quickly. And because LA.com is adding another Xserve soon, information will keep loading quickly even with increasing traffic.
“In terms of reliability, the Xserve is top-notch,” says Martirano. “Some people find they need to reboot their Windows machines every night, but I haven’t had to reboot our machines in over 180 days. So they’re exceptionally stable. They’re very fast too; we still have not even come close to the Xserve performance limits.”
Approach with Open Mind
Pleased with how well the Xserve has performed for LA.com, Martirano has some advice for peers reluctant to use Apple server technology: “Put away your prejudices and look at the machines themselves. Apple technology isn’t just for designers. The Apple Xserve is a full-class server, and it’s the best machine for development that I’ve used. You can’t beat it.”
