Abstract
Cluster-based Web servers are leading architectures for highly accessed Web sites. The most common Web cluster architecture consists of replicated server nodes and a Web switch that routes client requests among the nodes. In this paper, we consider content-aware Web switches that can use application level information to assign client requests. We evaluate the performance of some representative state-of-the-art dispatching algorithms for Web switches operating at layer 7 of the OSI protocol stack. Specifically, we consider dispatching algorithms that use only client information as well as the combination of client and server information for load sharing, reference locality or service partitioning. We demonstrate through a wide set of simulation experiments that dispatching policies aiming to improve locality in server caches give best results for traditional Web publishing sites providing static information and some simple database searches. On the other hand, when we consider more recent Web sites providing dynamic and secure services, dispatching policies that aim to share the load are the most effective.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
G. Apostolopoulos, D. Aubespin, V. Peris, P. Pradhan and D. Saha, Design, implementation and performance of a content-based switch, in: Proc. of IEEE Infocom 2000, Tel-Aviv, Israel (March 2000).
M.F. Arlitt and T. Jin, A workload characterization study of the 1998 World Cup Web site, IEEE Network 14(3) (2000) 30–37.
M. Aron, P. Druschel and Z. Zwaenepoel, Efficient support for P-HTTP in cluster-based Web servers, in: Proc. of USENIX 1999, Monterey, CA (June 1999).
M. Aron, D. Sanders, P. Druschel and W. Zwaenepoel, Scalable content-aware request distribution in cluster-based network servers, in: Proc. of USENIX 2000, San Diego, CA (June 2000).
P. Barford and M.E. Crovella, A performance evaluation of Hyper Text Transfer Protocols, in: Proc. of ACM Sigmetrics 1999, Atlanta (May 1999) pp. 188–197.
R. Bianchini and E.V. Carrera, Analytical and experimental evaluation of cluster-based network servers, World Wide Web 3(4) (2000).
R.B. Bunt, D.L. Eager, G.M. Oster and C.L. Williamson, Achieving load balance and effective caching in clustered Web servers, in: Proc. of 4th Int. Web Caching Workshop, San Diego, CA (April 1999) pp. 159–169.
V. Cardellini, M. Colajanni and P.S. Yu, Dynamic load balancing on Web-server systems, IEEE Internet Computing 3(3) (1999) 28–39.
E. Casalicchio and M. Colajanni, A client-aware dispatching algorithm for Web clusters providing multiple services, in: Proc. of 10th Int. World Wide Web Conference, Hong Kong (May 2001).
Cisco Systems, http://www.cisco.com/.
A. Cohen, S. Rangarajan and H. Slye, On the performance of TCP splicing for URL-aware redirection, in: Proc. of USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems, Boulder, CO (October 1999).
F5 Networks, http://www.f5labs.com/.
Foundry Networks, http://www.foundrynet.com/.
M. Harchol-Balter, M.E. Crovella and C.D. Murta, On choosing a task assignment policy for a distributed server system, J. of Parallel and Distributed Computing 59(2) (1999) 204–228.
Mesquite Software Inc., CSIM18 user guide, http://www.mesquite. com/.
Nortel Networks, Nortel Networks Web OS, http://www. nortelnetworks.com/.
V.S. Pai, M. Aron, G. Banga, M. Svendsen, P. Druschel, W. Zwaenepoel and E. Nahum, Locality-aware request distribution in cluster-based network servers, in: Proc. of 8th ACM Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, San Jose, CA (October 1998).
J.E. Pitkow, Summary of WWW characterizations, World Wide Web 2(1—2) (1999) 3–13.
Resonate Inc., http://www.resonate.com/.
T. Schroeder, S. Goddard and B. Ramamurthy, Scalable Web server clustering technologies, IEEE Network 14(3) (2000) 38–45.
J. Song, E. Levy-Abegnoli, A. Iyengar and D. Dias, Design alternatives for scalable Web server accelerators, in: Proc. of 2000 IEEE Int. Symposium on Performance Analysis of Systems and Software, Austin, TX (April 2000).
C.S. Yang and M.Y. Luo, A content placement and management system for cluster-based Web servers, in: Proc. of 20th IEEE Int. Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, Taipei, Taiwan (April 2000).
X. Zhang, M. Barrientos, J.B. Chen and M. Seltzer, HACC: An architecture for cluster-based Web servers, in: Proc. of 3rd USENIX Windows NT Symposium, Seattle, WA (July 1999).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Casalicchio, E., Cardellini, V. & Colajanni, M. Content-Aware Dispatching Algorithms for Cluster-Based Web Servers. Cluster Computing 5, 65–74 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012796706047
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012796706047