Assignment 8 - DNS and Performance

Turn in a document saved in MS Word format. Make sure you include name, date, and title at the top. Just like you should for any assignment for this class.

Don’t forget to use paragraphs. Don’t give me a wall of text please.

Part 1

Summarize what the DNS is, how to register a domain, and how a domain name is resolved. You must list all the steps required for DNS resolution for credit.

I’ll go over this in class, so if you take good notes, you’ll have part 1 done. A good explanation will likely run about one page, double-spaced.

Part 2

Use WebPageTest on two different web pages. Do not pick a fast website like Google’s search page.

Explain what WebPageTest shows, and also talk about how to improve the performance. Spend some time with this. Figure out exactly what is making the website slow. How would you improve it? It will probably take at least one page. I’ve had people take six pages.

I’ll do this in class with Hy-Vee. Your assignment is to do it with two more web pages.

Feel free to use the ‘snip’ tool or similar to take and explain parts of the results. Your explanation should be about 3/4 of a page or more for each site and pull out exact examples of what is slow. For example, tell me how many requests were made, what the biggest image was, if there was a lot of JavaScript, etc.