Benchmark-Based Optimization of Computational Capacity Distribution in a Client-Server Web Application

Abstract

There is a common task in web applications when the content of a database table or the result of a query has to be listed on the client side. In traditional implementation the requested amount of data needed for the page is queried and created on the server and is sent to the client. Then, at every interaction a new http request is sent to the server and the database layer generates a new data set to be displayed. Modern web applications can rely on the higher computing power of the client computers. Therefore state-of-the-art applications can transfer more data to the client where data are handled in an array and frontend Javascript executes filtering, sorting, and paging. This approach saves server capacities and omits the network communication lag; at the same time the user interface becomes faster and more responsive. A backend-frontend solution would be useful that distributes the computational tasks according to the available resources on the client side. As the data processing capability is not universal to all clients, benchmark logic has to be applied to adjust client specific data limit.