Implementing Adaptive Performance Management in Server Applications

Performance and scalability are critical quality attributes for server applications in Internet-facing business systems. These applications operate in dynamic environments with rapidly fluctuating user loads and resource levels, and unpredictable system faults- Adaptive (autonomic) systems research aims to augment such server applications with intelligent control logic that can detect and react to sudden environmental changes. However, developing this adaptive logic is complex in itself. In addition, executing the adaptive logic consumes processing resources, and hence may (paradoxically) adversely effect application performance. In this paper we describe an approach for developing high-performance adaptive server applications and the supporting technology. The Adaptive Server Framework (ASF) is built on standard middleware services, and can be used to augment legacy systems with adaptive behavior without needing to change the application business logic. Crucially, ASF provides built-in control loop components to optimize the overall application performance, which comprises both the business and adaptive logic. The control loop is based on performance models and allows systems designers to tune the performance levels simply by modifying high level declarative policies. We demonstrate the use of ASF in a case study.