Evaluation of data streaming effect on real-time content transformation in active proxies

Abstract

In this paper, we would like to quantify the effects of different modes of real-time content transformation in web intermediaries based on the ultimate performance matrix - the client's page retrieval time. The possible three modes of study are byte streaming, whole-object buffering, and chunk streaming. Due to the potential "pushing back" effect to the retrieval of embedded objects in a page, it is found that their performance might vary substantially. While byte streaming transformation might not be practical, the whole-object buffering strategy can easily cause an average increase of 10.45% and 41.67% in page and object retrieval latency respectively, independent of the exact transformation algorithm involved. This study not only gives the fundamentals for real-time content transformation in web intermediaries, but it also serves as an important implementation guideline for value-added network services. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.