Evaluation of data and request distribution policies in clustered servers

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-54).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.The popularity of the WWW has skyrocketed beyond all expectations and as a result the demands placed on traditional single machine servers has exceeded their original designs. Clustered-based servers are considered to be a viable alternative. However, the choice of request distribution and data distribution can play an important role in determining overall system performance. Round Robin type distribution schemes achieve ideal load balancing while ignoring server loading whereas locality based schemes can improve performance but completely ignore load balancing. In this paper we evaluate the various distribution policies and examine performance while using disk striping and disk mirroring. We also introduce a modification to the client-based distribution scheme that takes into account the server loads