Patia: adaptive distributed Webserver (A position paper)

This paper introduces the Patia adaptive Web server architecture, which is distributed and consists of semi-autonomous agents called flys. The fly carries with it the set of rules and adaptivity policies required to deliver the data to the requesting client. Where a change in the fly's external environment could affect performance, it is the fly's responsibility to change the method of delivery (or the actual object being delivered). It is our conjecture that the success of today's multimedia Web sites in terms of dependability and performance lies in the architecture of the underlying servers and their ability to adapt to changes in demand, resource availability, as well as their ability to scale. We believe that the distributed and autonomous nature of this system is the key factor in achieving this.