Performance Impact of Proxies in Data Intensive Client-Server Parallel Applications

Large client-server data intensive applications can place high demands on system and network resources. This is especially true when the connection between the client and server spans a wide-area internet link. In this paper, we consider changing the typical client-server architecture of a class of data intensive applications. We show that given sufficient common interest among multiple clients, our enhancements reduce the response time per-client and reduce the amount of data sent across the wide-area link. In addition, we also see a reduction in server utilization which helps to improve server scalability as more clients are added to the system.