Abstract
Server scalability is more important than ever in today's client/server dominated network environments. Recently, researchers have begun to consider cluster-based computers using commodity hardware as an alternative to expensive specialized hardware for building scalable Web servers. In this paper, we present performance results comparing two cluster-based Web servers based on different server architectures: OSI layer two dispatching (LSMAC) and OSI layer three dispatching (LSNAT). Both cluster-based server systems were implemented as application-space programs running on commodity hardware in contrast to other, similar, solutions which require specialized hardware/software. We point out the advantages and disadvantages of both systems. We also identify when servers should be clustered and when clustering will not improve performance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
C.R. Attanasio and S.E. Smith, A virtual Multiprocessor implemented by an encapsulated cluster of loosely coupled computers, IBM Research Report RC18442 (1992).
R. Braden, Requirements for Internet hosts-communication layers, RFC 1122 (October 1989).
T. Brisco, DNS support for load balancing, RFC 1794 (April 1995).
L. Bruno, Balancing the load on Web servers, Data Communications (1997), http://www.data.com/.
Cisco Systems: Local Director, http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/ 751/lodir/ (1999).
Daemon9, Libnet: Network Routine Library, http://www. packetfactory.net/libnet/ (August 1999).
O.P. Damani, P.E. Chung, Y. Huang, C. Kitala and Y. Wang, ONE-IP: techniques for hosting a service on a cluster of machines, in: Proc. of 6th International WWW Conference, Santa Clara, CA (April 1997).
D. Dias, W. Kish, R. Mukherjee and R. Tewari, A scalable and highly available Web server, in: IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering, New Orleans (February 1996).
G. Hunt, G. Goldszmidt, R. King and R. Mukherjee, Network dispatcher: a connection router for scalable Internet service, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 30 (1998) 347-357.
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory: Packet Capture Library, ftp://ftp.ee. lbl.gov/libcap.tar.Z (1999).
E. Levy-Abegnoli, A. Iyengar, J. Song and D. Dias, Design and performance of a Web server accelerator, in: Proc. of INFOCOM, New York, NY (March 1999).
Mindcraft: WebStone, http://www.mindcraft.com/webstone/ (1999).
R. Mukherjee, A scalable and highly available clustered Web server, in: High Performance Cluster Computing, Vol. 1, Architectures and Systems ed. R. Buyya (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1999) pp. 811-840.
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 ASPLOS-VIII, San Jose, CA (October 1998).
M. Snir, S. Otto, S. Huss-Lederman, D. Walker and J. Dongarra, MPI: The Complete Reference (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996).
D. Song and M. Undy, NFR performance testing, http://www.anzen. com/products/nfr/testing/ (February 1999).
P. Srisuresh and D. Gan, Load sharing using IP network address translation (LSNAT), RFC 2391 (August 1998).
V. Sunderam, PVM: A framework for parallel distributed computing, Concurrency: Practice and Experience (December 1990) 315-339.
G. Trent and M. Sake, WebStone: the first generation in HTTP benchmarking, in: Proc. of MTS Silicon Graphics (February 1995).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gan, X., Schroeder, T., Goddard, S. et al. LSMAC vs. LSNAT: Scalable cluster‐based Web servers. Cluster Computing 3, 175–185 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019084304980
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019084304980