RaDaR - A Scalable Architecture for a Global Web-Hosting Service

RaDaR (Replicators and Distributors and Redirectors) is a scalable architecture for a global information-hosting service. The architecture has no bottleneck points, thus enabling the system to handle a growing load by simply adding more standard processing nodes, not by increasing processing power of any single node.

The RaDaR architecture achieves this by assigning logical names to objects and by dynamically replicating objects based on demand. One challenge in designing such an architecture is to prevent internal components that resolve logical names and make replica placement decisions from becoming the new bottlenecks. Another challenge is to formulate a ``correct'' protocol for load distribution that would result in a sensible behavior of the system. Finally, the load distribution mechanism must take into account both geographical proximity to clients and server load when deciding on replica placement and distributing client requests among replicas.

A simple prototype of RaDaR has been implemented.

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