Bandwidth optimization
Encyclopedia
Bandwidth optimization is one of many concerns webmasters deal with when hosting web content. Since most web hosts charge by bandwidth
used or have an account limit on bandwidth, a prudent webmaster will squeeze and compress
their files as much as possible without affecting the content's integrity. Lately, most web hosts are offering unlimited bandwidth. Reductions in bandwidth usage are measured in negabytes, a unit akin to other "negative" units such as negawatts, negavolts, negajoules, negameters, and negagrams.
Even the simplest bandwidth optimization techniques can reduce bandwidth costs significantly. Owners of extremely high-volume web services are especially diligent, and have been known to employ extreme techniques to save a few bytes per page. For example, many staple pages are highly optimized - with whitespace and line breaks removed, unneeded quotes removed around HTML attributes, and images compressed to the limit while maintaining clarity.
Most bandwidth optimization techniques can fit into one of three categories: Efficiency, Compression, and Omission.
. The topic of compression also includes image compression e.g. JPG, PNG, GIF
Also see WAN Optimization
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
used or have an account limit on bandwidth, a prudent webmaster will squeeze and compress
Bandwidth compression
In telecommunication, the term bandwidth compression has the following meanings:*The reduction of the bandwidth needed to transmit a given amount of data in a given time.*The reduction of the time needed to transmit a given amount of data in a given bandwidth....
their files as much as possible without affecting the content's integrity. Lately, most web hosts are offering unlimited bandwidth. Reductions in bandwidth usage are measured in negabytes, a unit akin to other "negative" units such as negawatts, negavolts, negajoules, negameters, and negagrams.
Even the simplest bandwidth optimization techniques can reduce bandwidth costs significantly. Owners of extremely high-volume web services are especially diligent, and have been known to employ extreme techniques to save a few bytes per page. For example, many staple pages are highly optimized - with whitespace and line breaks removed, unneeded quotes removed around HTML attributes, and images compressed to the limit while maintaining clarity.
Most bandwidth optimization techniques can fit into one of three categories: Efficiency, Compression, and Omission.
Efficiency
Efficiency techniques involve changing the web content in order to minimize the number of bytes that need to be sent. For example, use external files (which will cache) instead of inline styles and scripts, reuse icon images, use semantic markup. Fix any broken images, since these often send a verbose 404 error page.Compression
Use compression on the server to squash files before they are sent. Compression is a well-established technique in telecommunications, since without significant bandwidth compression, the telephone grid could not handle the amount of data that passes through it. On the web the most popular compression algorithm for real-time compression is gzipGzip
Gzip is any of several software applications used for file compression and decompression. The term usually refers to the GNU Project's implementation, "gzip" standing for GNU zip. It is based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of Lempel-Ziv and Huffman coding...
. The topic of compression also includes image compression e.g. JPG, PNG, GIF
Also see WAN Optimization
WAN Optimization
WAN optimization is a collection of techniques for increasing data-transfer efficiencies across wide-area networks. In 2008, the WAN optimization market was estimated to be $1 billion , and it will grow to $4.4 billion according to Gartner, a technology research firm.The most common measures of...