The content and access dynamics of a busy Web server (poster session)

ABSTRACT

We study the MSNBC Web site, one of the busiest in the Internet today. We analyze the dynamics of content creation and modification as well as client accesses. Our key findings are (a) files tend to change little upon modification, (b) a small set of files get modified repeatedly, (c) file popularity follows a Zipf-like distribution with an &agr; much larger than reported in previous, proxy-based studies, and (d) there is significant temporal stability in file popularity but not much stability in the domains from which popular content is accessed. We discuss implications of these findings.

REFERENCES

• 1: L. Breslau, P. Cao, L. Fan, G. Phillips, and S. Shenker. "Web Caching and Zipf-like Distributions: Evidence and Implications". In Proc. of INFOCOM'99, March 1999.
• 2: David A. Grossman , Ophir Frieder, Information Retrieval: Algorithms and Heuristics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 1998
• 3: V. N. Padmanabhan and L. Qiu. "The Content and Access Dynamics of a Busy Web Server: Findings and Implications". Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR- TR-2000-13, February 2000.
• 4: A. Vahdat~ M. Dahlin~ T. Anderson, and A. Aggarwal, Active Names: Flexible Location and Transport of Wide-Area Resources. In Proc. USITS'99, October 1999.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.5 Local and Wide-Area Networks
          Subjects: Internet (e.g., TCP/IP)
  C.5 COMPUTER SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Performance, Theory