6 EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION
6.1 Introduction
The objective is this chapter is to evaluate the design and flexibility of the overall framework
and the usefulness of the information that it can provide. Following this, a conclusion of the
completed dissertation will be given and possible future work that could be undertaken to
improve and extend the framework.
6.2 Evaluation Overview
This evaluation first examines a case study that was conducted using the framework to
monitor a Web delivered email service. The aim of this was to demonstrate how the
framework could be applied to monitor a Web delivered service and provide useful
information on availability and performance from the user perspective.
6.3 Case Study: Yahoo Mail
It was decided that to properly evaluate the framework, a demonstration of its capabilities
should be undertaken against an actual Web delivered service. The target service that was
chosen was Yahoo Mail. Yahoo Mail is a free Web based email service. It allows its
subscribers to receive and send email via the Internet using a standard Web browser as an
interface to the service. It supports all the traditional features that typical mail user agents
possess including the capabilities to send, receive, attach files to messages, search for
messages etc, except the interface is a normal Web browser.
6.3.1 Test Environment
The test environment that was used to demonstrate the service consisted of a host with a
Web browser and the Jigsaw proxy running with the HTTPQoS filter enabled. The Web
browser was configured to pass all requests via the proxy. The Internet connection was via a
dialup account to a local ISP over a 56kbps modem. It was expected that the performance of
a