The original World-Wide Web (WWW) architecture--which requires a network connection from a client to a possible distant server for each document retrieved--is not scalable. Servers and network have limited bandwidth that cannot keep pace with continuing growth in Web usage, particularly as the popularity of bandwidth-intensive media types, such as video, grows. This project addresses Web scalability by characterizing WWW traffic and applying that characterization to design and evaluating algorithms to cache and prefetch documents within networks. The project has five objectives: to 1) collect traces from four disparate traffic sources; 2) prepare to handle the large volume of collected traces by extending methods to collect, visualize, analyze, and model Web traffic using the Chitra trace analysis tool; 3) use techniques from objective two to characterize Web traffic based on the traces collected for objective one; 4) develop a predictive model and simulation of clients, servers, and Web traffic in the context of universities and community networks that permits the design and evaluation of algorithms for in-network document caching to reduce the bandwidth requirements of Web servers and networks. The simulation will use results from workload characterization. The model will allow a network manager to place and configure in network caches (e.g. proxy servers) within an existing network; and 5) design and evaluate, through simulation, algorithms to prefetch documents, thereby partially hiding latency.
