Web Workload Generation According to the UniLoG Approach

Generating synthetic loads which are sufficiently close to reality represents an important and challenging task in performance and quality-of-service (QoS) evaluations of computer networks and distributed systems. Here, the load to be generated represents sequences of requests at a well-defined service interface within a network node. The paper presents a tool (UniLoG.HTTP) which can be used in a flexible manner to generate realistic and representative server and network loads, in terms of access requests to Web servers as well as creation of typical Web traffic within a communication network. The paper describes the architecture of this load generator, the critical design decisions and solution approaches which allowed us to obtain the desired flexibility. 1998 ACM Subject Classification C.2.2 [Computer Communication Networks]: Network Protocols – HTTP; C.2.3 [Computer Communication Networks]: Network Operations – Network management; C.2.4 [Computer Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems – Distributed applications; C.4 [Performance of Systems]: Measurement techniques, Modeling techniques, Performance attributes; G.3 [Probability and Statistics]: Distribution functions, Experimental design, Stochastic processes; I.6.5 [Simulation and Modeling]: Model Development – Modeling methodologies.