Performance benchmarking of wireless Web servers

Abstract

The advent of mobile computers and wireless networks enables the deployment of wireless Web servers and clients in short-lived ad hoc network environments, such as classroom area networks. The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the performance capabilities of wireless Web servers in such an environment. Network traffic measurements are conducted on an in-building IEEE 802.11b wireless ad hoc network, using a wireless-enabled Apache Web server, several wireless clients, and a wireless network traffic analyzer. The experiments focus on the HTTP transaction rate and end-to-end throughput achievable in such an ad hoc network environment, and the impacts of factors such as Web object size, number of clients, and persistent HTTP connections. The results show that the wireless network bottleneck manifests itself in several ways: inefficient HTTP performance, client-side packet losses, server-side packet losses, network thrashing, and unfairness among Web clients. Persistent HTTP connections offer up to 350% improvement in HTTP transaction rate and user-level throughput, while also improving fairness for mobile clients accessing content from a wireless Web server.