Technical question regarding Server load and the txt file

Hi I am wanting to install coop on a large, busy site and am concerned about the load the script will have on the server.

I have read http://co-op-faq.blogspot.com/2005/03/how-it-works-technically.html

Which explains the script pulls the ads from digitalpoints servers to a cache file ( I presume this is the text file ad_network_ads_xxx.txt)

What I don't quite understand is: why are the ads displayed via a text file before they get inserted onto the site rather than just being pulled straight from digitalpoints's servers?

is this something to do with saving resources on digitalpoint's servers?

Hope someone can help explain this to me.


Thanks

Tom

 

Thanks for replying Shawn,

Would you just confirm if I have got the process right in my head?

1.The script pulls a bunch of adverts from digitalpoint's server and puts them in the text file.
2.The ads in the text file are shown a certain number of times on my site and then when they have been shown a set number of times another set of ads is pulled from digitalpoint's server and they get shown a set number of times and so on and so on.

If I have got this right: How often is the text file updated with new ads. I am trying to figure out how many times the text file will be written to in a day.

Hope you will confim if I have got this process right or correct me if I have got it wrong. I have to convince my technical guy that it won't cause too much strain on the servers.


Thanks for your help

Tom

 

Thanks Shawn. That makes it clearer.

Tom

 

One more question.

Is the processing of how many pages each ad should be shown on my site done locally on my site or is that all done on your (digitalpoints) servers?

Thank again.

Tom