Abstract

 

With the development of new client-server computing models, such as thin clients and network computers, the performance of servers becomes a bottleneck. In these models, servers support a large number of clients. They download significant amounts of data to their clients in the form of graphics, executables (e.g., applets), and video. We present an architecture for building high-performance server systems that can efficiently serve large local clusters of NCs or other clients. The key component in our architecture is a generic cache module that is designed to fully utilize available bus bandwidth. Our experiments show that such a server system can achieve throughput rates of up to 36,000 transactions per second. We detail the design and implementation of the generic cache component, describe its use in the implementation of a sample server system, and show how the architecture can be scaled.