Method for adapting an internet web server to short-term changes in demand

• US 20020165909A1
• Filed: 05/01/2001
• Published: 11/07/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Trevathan, Matthew Bunkley, Richards, Patrick James Jr., Martin, Michael Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 7,975,042 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

Servlets within a web server maintain state information concerning requests made by users of the server. The servlets associate each user with an HTTP session object. The session object is configured to include information that identifies the last-N web pages requested by the user. Periodically, or in response to a triggering event, the server analyzes the contents of the session objects, for example by tabulating the frequency with which each web page has been requested in the recent past. From the results of the analysis, web-page caching priorities are determined, and the contents of the server'"'"'s cache are altered accordingly.

Claims

1. A method for adapting to change in the demand on a web server, comprising the acts of:

associating session tracking objects with browsers that access a web server, wherein the session tracking objects include identifications of web pages requested by the browsers; and

analyzing the identifications of web pages requested by the browsers to determine caching priorities for the server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifications of web pages requested by the browsers include the identifications of the last N web pages requested by each of the browsers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein N is five.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the session tracking objects are HTTP session objects.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the caching priorities are proportional to relative frequencies of browser requests for web pages.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the caching priorities are proportional to recency of browser requests for web pages.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of analyzing is performed periodically.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of analyzing is performed in response to a triggering event.

9. A method for adapting to change in the demand on a web server, comprising the acts of:

associating session tracking objects with browsers that access a web server, wherein the session tracking objects include identifications of web pages requested by the browsers;

analyzing the identifications of web pages requested by the browsers to determine caching priorities for the server; and

altering a server cache responsive to the caching priorities.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the act of altering further includes the act of re-loading at least part of the server cache.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the act of altering further includes the act of altering a caching algorithm associated with the server cache.