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Hierarchical availability analysis of multi-tiered Web applications

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Abstract

Multi-tiered Web applications must offer their services with superior availability in order to encourage customers to choose online services over the traditional brick-and-mortar options. A systematic, quantitative analysis is the first step in ensuring that multi-tiered Web applications meet their high availability expectations. This paper proposes a hierarchical, model-based methodology to assess the availability of multi-tiered Web applications. The hierarchical approach partitions the analysis into three levels, which allows a systematic consideration of several factors that are relevant to application availability without encountering the issues of model complexity and intractability. We illustrate the approach via experimentation using the TPC-W benchmark. We also demonstrate how the approach could be used to guide resource provisioning decisions.

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Acknowledgments

The research at the University of Connecticut is supported by a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (#CNS-064371).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Jijun Lu & Swapna S. Gokhale

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  1. Jijun Lu
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  2. Swapna S. Gokhale
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Correspondence to Swapna S. Gokhale.

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Lu, J., Gokhale, S.S. Hierarchical availability analysis of multi-tiered Web applications. Software Qual J 21, 355–376 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-012-9176-9

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