What if light bulbs had been invented before a standard wattage rating system had been established? In effect, that is what has happened with the Internet in general and the World Wide Web in particular.

There are ways to measure CPU cycles, ways to measure database transactions, ways to measure bandwidth, and ways to measure application and server performance. But how do you measure all of it working together?

After all, a web site is nothing but a combination of inter-connected hardware and software from many different vendors. The most finely tuned high-end server can only handle three or four users at a time if it only has a 56K modem connection - of what use are the server's specs in that case?

CapCal™ Benchmark Ratings™ are a significant aspect of the load testing methodology that has been under development since October, 2000. For example, CapCal has created a set of standard Web pages that anyone can load on their server(s) and run a standard CapCal load test against, yielding results that measure system quantities such as bandwidth, hits per second, maximum session limits, server response time, and so forth, from a variety of locations around the world.

This kind of information is invaluable to companies that sell hosting services, connectivity and bandwidth, server hardware, routers and so forth. It is also essential to companies wishing to evaluate such products before making a purchase decision.

By defining, using, and promoting such a standard set of benchmarks, CapCal will help quantify and "universalize" the various parameters of these mission-critical systems.

CapCal technology will set industry standards and benchmarks for Web capacity, performance, availability and reliability, the very factors upon which all e-commerce depends. A "Calibrated by CapCal" logo, like the familiar UL wattage rating symbol, will become the hallmark of reliable Web sites across the Internet.