Web operations is a domain of expertise within IT systems management that involves the deployment, operation, maintenance, tuning, and repair of web-based applications.

Historically, operations was seen as a late phase of the Waterfall model

Waterfall model

The waterfall model is a sequential design process, often used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards through the phases of Conception, Initiation, Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing, Production/Implementation and Maintenance.The waterfall...

 development process. After engineering had built a software product, and QA had verified it as correct, it would be handed to a support staff to operate the working software. Such a view assumed that software was mostly immutable in production and that usage would be mostly stable. Increasingly, "a web application involves many specialists, but it takes people in web ops to ensure that everything works together throughout an application's lifetime." The role is gaining respect as a distinct specialty among developers and managers.

With the rise of web technologies since mid-1995, specialists have emerged that understand the complexities of running a web application. Earlier examples of IT operations teams exist, such as the Network Operations Center (NOC) and the Database Administration (DBA) function.

Web systems demand their own specialized skills. Web applications are unique in many ways, including:

• Their use by a distributed, often uncontrolled, user base
• The many independent networks between end users and the data center from which content is served
• The three-tiered model
  Multitier architecture
  In software engineering, multi-tier architecture is a client–server architecture in which the presentation, the application processing, and the data management are logically separate processes. For example, an application that uses middleware to service data requests between a user and a database...
  
   of web, application, and database components (such as LAMP
  LAMP (software bundle)
  LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, referring to the first letters of Linux , Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP , principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.The GNU project is advocating people to use the term "GLAMP" since what is known as...
  
   environments consisting of Linux
  Linux
  Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
  
  , MySQL
  MySQL
  MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
  
   and either Perl
  Perl
  Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
  
   or PHP
  PHP
  PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
  
  )
• The way in which web pages are delivered as atomic transactions, requiring additional technologies (such as cookies) to associate sequences of pages into a user interaction.

Web operations teams are tasked with a variety of responsibilities, including:

• The deployment and instrumentation of web applications
• The monitoring, error isolation, escalation, and repair of problems
• Performing performance management
  Performance management
  Performance management includes activities that ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service, as well as many...
  
  , availability
  Availability
  In telecommunications and reliability theory, the term availability has the following meanings:* The degree to which a system, subsystem, or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at an unknown, i.e., a random, time...
  
   reporting, and other administration
• Configuring load-balancing and working with content delivery network
  Content Delivery Network
  A content delivery network or content distribution network is a system of computers containing copies of data placed at various nodes of a network....
  
  s to improve the reliability and reduce the latency
  Latency (engineering)
  Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
  
   of the system.
• Measuring the impact of changes to content, applications, networks, and infrastructure

Typically, web operations personnel are familiar with the TCP/IP stack, the http protocol, HTML

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

 page markup, and Rich Internet application

Rich Internet application

A Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...

s (RIAs) such as AJAX

Ajax

- Mythology :* Ajax , son of Telamon, ruler of Salamis and a hero in the Trojan War, also known as "Ajax the Great"* Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, ruler of Locris and the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War.- People :...

, Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

and the like.