Exploiting NIC Memory for Improving Cluster-Based Webserver Performance

Improving the performance of Web servers has become a critical issue to handle the increasing demand on various network-based services. In this context, we exploit the local memory of programmable network interface cards (NICs) to improve the performance of cluster-based Web servers, which are incre...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gyu Sang Choi, Jin-Ha Kim, Ersoz, D., Yousif, M.S., Das, C.R.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Delay
Electronic mail
Ethernet networks
Linux
Network interfaces
Network servers
Prototypes
Scattering
Throughput
Web server
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:Improving the performance of Web servers has become a critical issue to handle the increasing demand on various network-based services. In this context, we exploit the local memory of programmable network interface cards (NICs) to improve the performance of cluster-based Web servers, which are increasingly used in designing Web server platforms. We use the NIC memory for caching recently accessed data blocks to improve server performance. We have implemented a prototype of the proposed NIC caching mechanism for a distributed Web server, based on PRESS (Carrera et al., 2002), on an 8-node, Myrinet-connected Linux cluster. Measurements with several server workloads show that NIC caching can enhance throughput by up to 27% compared to the original PRESS Web server without NIC caching, by minimizing the DMA and PCI bus overhead
ISSN:1552-5244
2168-9253
DOI:10.1109/CLUSTR.2005.347067