Improving Web Performance through New Networking Technologies

New connection-oriented networking technologies can provide quality-of-service guaranteed network connectivity required by some web-based applications. In this paper, we present a solution for leveraging these new networking technologies without requiring modifications to existing web server and client software. We implemented a CGI-based software package called WebFT. We demonstrate how it can be used along with existing web servers and clients to enable fast web page downloads across a wide-area experimental connection- oriented network called CHEETAH, which we deployed as part of an NSF-sponsored project. WebFT is integrated with the CHEETAH end-host software modules to provide deterministic data transfer services transparently to users. The "add-on" design of the CHEETAH network, whereby connection-oriented services are provided in addition to the connectionless service offered by the Internet, allows the WebFT package to provide normal web server access to non- CHEETAH clients through the Internet while simultaneously serving CHEETAH clients on dedicated circuits. The experiments conducted on the CHEETAH testbed show that WebFT can achieve low-variance end-to-end transfer delays at different circuit rates and low transfer delays when high-speed circuits are possible. 1. Introduction