Exploiting NIC Memory for Improving Cluster-Based Webserver Performance
Gyu Sang Choi, Jin-Ha Kim, Deniz Ersoz, Mazin S. Yousif and Chita R. Das
IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (Cluster 2005)
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, September 27 - 30, 2005
Abstract
Improving the performance of Web servers has become a critical issue to handle the increasing demand on various network-based services. In this context, we exploit the local memory of programmable Network Interface Cards (NICs) to improve the performance of cluster-based Web servers, which are increasingly used in designing Web server platforms. We use the NIC memory for caching recently accessed data blocks to improve server performance. We have implemented a prototype of the proposed NIC caching mechanism for a distributed Web server, based on PRESS, on an 8-node, Myrinet-connected Linux cluster. Measurements with several server workloads show that NIC caching can enhance throughput by up to 27% and reduce the average intra-cluster latency by around 20% compared to the original PRESS Web server without NIC caching, by minimizing the DMA and PCI bus overhead.