Achieving load balancing and efficient memory usage in a web hosting service cluster

FLEX is a new scalable locality aware solution for achieving both load balancing and efficient memory usage on a cluster of machines hosting several web sites [C99]. FLEX allocates the sites to different machines in the cluster based on their traffic characteristics. Here, we propose a set of new methods and algorithms (Simple, Simple+, Advanced, and Advanced+) to improve the allocation of the web sites to different machines. We also design algorithm Closest which creates a new partition for the given sites' requirements which is closest to a specified previous sites' partition. Improved FLEX outperforms traditional load balancing solutions 50% to 100% (in throughput) even for a four node cluster. Miss ratio is improved 2-3 times. These figures increase with the size of the cluster. Ease of deployment and low cost are the other attractions of FLEX.