Customized library of modules for STREAMS-based TCP/IP implementation to support content-aware request processing for Web applications

Content-aware request processing enables the intelligent routing and request processing inside a cluster to provide the QoS (quality of service) requirements for different types of content and to improve the overall cluster performance. A STREAMS-based TCP/IP implementation in HP-UX 11.0 provides a convenient framework to design a library of new STREAMS modules to support content-aware request distribution and differentiation inside a cluster. The proposed modules take into account the specifics of different cluster architectures and workload characteristics. These modules are designed as dynamically loadable modules, and no changes are made to the existing TCP/IP code. The proposed design has the following advantages: flexibility (new modules may be loaded and unloaded dynamically, without node function interruption) and modularity (the proposed modules may be ported to other operating systems with minimal effort; more importantly, the proposed STREAMS modules can be easily integrated and deployed into commercial operating systems, so that end-users may take advantage of these solutions much sooner)