Ad Juggler and Web Administration for Microsoft Windows NT Server

Ad banner statistics and remote NT Server administration made easy

Anyone involved with a Web site knows a Web site isn't cheap to run and maintain. The Windows NTMagazine site, like many others, incorporates paid advertising to help support it. Posting ads is easy, but keepingtrack of the number of ad impressions (the number of times an ad banner appears) and click-throughs (the number of timesa user clicks on an ad banner) for our advertisers and our ad sales department can be a big job. I use a mix of InternetInformation Server (IIS) 3.0's Active Server Pages (ASP--for information about ASP, see Keith Pleas, "IIS 3.0'sActive Server Pages," page 127) and Cold Fusion (for information about Cold Fusion, see the review, "dbWeb andCold Fusion," April 1996) to record these advertising statistics to a SQL Server database. This method works well,but it can be a resource hog and requires that I create a user interface (UI) so that clients can access statistics fortheir ad banners.

With more than 2.5 million ad impressions each month, I have a lot of stats to maintain. I recently discovereddigitalNATION's Ad Juggler for Windows NT. The software has been around awhile for UNIX users, and digitalNATIONrecently revamped the software and ported it to NT. This package offers everything our ad sales department has beenasking for and then some. Ad Juggler gives us an enormous amount of control over each client's banner from a veryfriendly interface--any Web browser.

Ad Juggler Installation and Setup
Installing Ad Juggler is a breeze--you just run the executable file and fill in the blanks. You then use yourbrowser to access the Ad Juggler interface to start entering accounts. From the main menu you see in Screen 1, click AddNew Client and fill in the blanks on the subsequent page, as shown in Screen 2.

You can see that Ad Juggler performs a lot of the ad banner maintenance for you. Ad Juggler lets you set up theparameters for an ad before you even start. For example, you can set all the parameters for an account and never have toreconfigure the ad unless the client wants to extend its time online.

On the new client screen in Screen 2, you specify the client name, an email address where Ad Juggler canautomatically mail reports, a password so that the client can access the ad banner stats, the choice of whether you wantdetailed logs, and the client status. The client status has three options: Auto, which takes a client's banner out ofrotation when you reach any limit set on the account; Active, which keeps a banner active regardless of its stats; andHold, which stops a banner from rotating while letting the client access the ad banner stats.

The part I like is the limitation you can apply to a banner's rotation. If you set the client status to Auto, youcan also set a start and end date to specify when the ad banner enters a rotation. Alternatively, you can set how manytimes Web surfers can view or click a banner. You can also evenly disperse a banner's impressions over a given period.For example, suppose a client doesn't want to pay for a slot in your regular rotation schedule but is willing to pay for100,000 impressions over a month at a reduced rate. If you put this client's banner into your regular rotation, you canuse up all the impressions in less than a week. But with Ad Juggler, you can set Impressions distribution inScreen 2 to Even, and the software will take the number for the Max Impressions setting, divide it by 30, and show thatnumber of impressions each day.

In addition, you can select how often you want to email a report to the client. You can set the software to email areport based on the number of ad impressions, click-throughs, or days. This feature is especially nice for clients whodon't want to take the time to view their stats but still want updates on how their ads are doing.

Clients who want to keep close tabs on their ads can visit a personalized stats page to see up-to-date numbers fortheir ad banners. Screen 3 shows what clients see on their custom pages. Clients can see what images are rotating in thelineup and the numbers of ad impressions and click-throughs associated with those ad banners. This screen also letsclients change how often reports are emailed to them. The rest of Ad Juggler's controls are accessible from only themain menu, which is available to only those users who have the administrative password.

Screen 3 shows two ad banners. Ad Juggler lets you set up multiple banners for each client's advertising campaignwhile still maintaining one set of stats.

Ad Juggler also has a Pool option so that you can set up different rotations for different pages. For example, youcan have several clients in group A who want their banners on only certain pages, and you can still maintain a group Bwith several clients who want their ad banners everywhere else.

Living with Ad Juggler
I did a brief performance test using Ad Juggler and discovered that the software uses a lot of CPU time. I simulated120 simultaneous Web users, a fraction of our usual traffic, on my Intergraph InterServe Web 300 150MHz Pentium Pro with128MB RAM. The CPU average usage was nearly 50 percent. Overall, the software requires more resources than my existingsolution, but Ad Juggler does a better job of helping administer the ad banner stats. Besides, isn't performance whatPentium Pros are for?

If you want to call up Ad Juggler using your Web browser, your Web page must allow server-side includes (SSI).Unless you're willing to reset the default file for your Web site to be an SSI page, you can have a difficult timegetting Ad Juggler to work on your home page. I get around this limitation by using a home page with frames. The defaultpage is still index.html, but I can use whatever file types I want to fill each different frame on this page. Myindex.html page builds three frames: an ASP file, an SSI file, and a Cold Fusion file.

Ad Juggler is a product that pays for itself in no time. To duplicate its ability and functionality would cost memore in time than Ad Juggler's out-the-door sticker price. digitalNATION probably made Ad Juggler easy to operate tosimplify the Web master's life, but the vast amount of well-organized stats is what makes my life easy and our ad salesdepartment happy.

Web Administration for NT Server
Microsoft has introduced yet another NT administration tool, Web Administration for Microsoft Windows NT Server. Theadvantage of this tool is that you can use it to manage your NT servers from your Web browser. Web Administration forMicrosoft Windows NT Server comes with the Microsoft Windows NT Server Resource Kit, and you can download it forfree from Microsoft's Web site. Installing the program is easy. Simply run the .exe file, and the program searches yoursystem for the necessary files and takes care of the installation.

Web Administration for Microsoft Windows NT Server is as close as you can get to administering your NT serverwithout actually sitting in front of it. Granted, this method of remote administration isn't very useful if you can walkacross a room and sit down at your NT server. However, this tool is handy if you are away from your desk but need toaccess the administrative tools on your server--all you need is a compatible Web browser.

For example, imagine that I'm in another department. I need to grant a user access to a particular directory, but Idon't have time to get back to my servers. This situation is perfect for displaying the power and flexibility of theWeb. To grant this user access, all I have to do is fire up the user's Web browser, point it to the Web Administrationfor Microsoft Windows NT Server file, and voila! I can now set the following server functions from the page you see inScreen 4:

Account Management

Share Management

Server Management

To use Web Administration for Microsoft Windows NT Server, you need NT Server running IIS 2.0 or greater and a Webbrowser that supports Basic authentication. I prefer to use Internet Explorer (IE) 3.0 because I can use NT ChallengeResponse security.

Also regarding security, if you're accessing your server from someone else's machine, make sure to close the Webbrowser when you're finished. This step forces users to log on again if they use the browser to go to youradministrative URL. As long as your Web service isn't locked up, this tool gives you an alternative method ofcontrolling your NT servers.