Scaling Dynamic Web Content Provision Using Elapsed-Time-Based Content Degradation

Dynamic Web content is increasing in popularity and, by its nature, is harder to scale than static content. As a result, dynamic Web content delivery degrades more rapidly than static content under similar client request rates. Many techniques have been explored for effectively handling heavy Web request traffic. In this paper, we concentrate on dynamic content degradation, believing that it offers a good balance between minimising total cost of ownership and maximising scalability. We describe an algorithm for dynamic content degradation that is easily implemented on top of existing mainstream Web application architectures. The algorithm is based on measuring the elapsed time of content generation. We demonstrate the algorithm’s adaptability against two traffic request patterns, and explore behavioural changes when varying the algorithm’s key parameters. We find our elapsed time based algorithm is better at recognising when the server is unloaded, that the supporting architecture limits the effectiveness of the algorithm and and that the algorithm must be configured pessimistically for best results under load.