Cluster-based scalable network services

Abstract

We identifit three fundamental requirements for scalable network services: incremental scalability and oveflow growth provisioning, 24x7 availability through fault masking, and costeffectiveness.We argue that clusters of commodity workstations interconnected by a high-speed SAN are exceptionally well-suited to meeting these challenges for Internet-server workloads, provided the software infrastructure for managing partial failures and administering a large cluster does not have to be reinvented for each new service.To this end, we propose a general, layered architecture for building cluster-based scalable network services that encapsulates the above requirements for reuse, and a service-programming model based on composable workers thatpe$onn transformation, aggregation, caching, i and customization (TACC) of Internet content.For both performance and implementation simplicity, the architecture and TACC programming model exploit BASE, a weaker-than-ACID data semantics that results from trading consistency for availability and relying on sof state for robustness in failure management., Our ,qychitecture can be used as an "off the shelf * irtfrastructural platfonn for creating new network services, allowing authors to focus on the "content" of the service {by composing TACC building blocks) rather than its implementation.We discuss two real implemeritations of services based on this architecture: TranSend, a Web distillation proxy deployed to the UC Berkeley dialup IP population, and HotBot, the commercial implementation of the Inktomi search engine.We present detailed measurements of TranSend's performance based on substantial client traces, as well as anecdotal evidence from the TranSend and HotBot experience, to support the claims made for the architecture.