Abstract

Today there are many solutions for the caching and distribution of static content (e.g. images, html pages, video files). However, delivering dynamic content and interactive services (e.g. CGI services) remains a challenge due to the many dependencies that such services have on custom libraries, third party modules, operating systems, and server hardware. In this paper we propose a novel solution, which builds on top of the classic operating system concept of a virtual machine monitor (VMM). A VMM allows us to encapsulate the state of the machine in a virtual machine file, which could then be instantiated on any real machine running the VMM sofb0vare. This eliminates the dependencies problem by allowing us to move the whole machine around, thus reducing the problem of dynamic content distribution to delivering large virtual machine files among real machines running the VMM sofb0vare. The main challenge is mimicking the original environment surrounding the virtual machine such that it can be transparently transported between real machines without needing to make any sofb0vare changes. We propose a practical architecture and analyze the performance tradeoffs for two-tier architectures that require connectivity from the mobile front-ends to back-end databases.

Citations