Web Map Services - Geoserver Interaction with Java

Question

I am working on a Java Applet, which makes use of a WMS (geoserver), which displays a specified map and then manipulates it to however is desired (zooming, panning etc). I mainly just want to know if anyone knows much about this and any techniques that can speed up the response time of the geoserver queries, so the applet is at a much more practical speed and better to use.
An example of the problem is, that when the user clicks the zoom in button, it takes about 5 seconds for it to respond with the zoomed in map as it constructs the query, and then sends it off to geoserver which then responds with the newly constructed image. It is vital that the speed of the this is as fast as possible.
Basically we just need faster response time.
Any help would be fantastic.

Answer 1

An example of the problem is, that when the user
clicks the zoom in button, it takes about 5 seconds
for it to respond with the zoomed in map as it
constructs the query, and then sends it off to
geoserver which then responds with the newly
constructed image. It is vital that the speed of the
this is as fast as possible.Well, first you need to have a look at the bottlenecks. I assume that constructing and sending the query isn't really one, so it's just the server. There might be a way to get more bandwidth or higher priority from the geoserver, but you would have to ask the service provider about that. Otherwise, do some profiling and come back here - there are few general recipes for "making things faster", if any; a detailed look is required.