Subject: Re: HTTP performance issues

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 14:20:00 -0800 (PST)

> From: [email-masked]
> To: [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:23:32 +0100
> Subject: HTTP performance issues
> 
> Hi ,
> 
> We are now in the process of rolling-out web based applications to a number of
> remote VSAT connected sites. With the tests we did, I have to conclude that the
> performance of HTTP is rather poor. Now one factor that might have an impact is
> that we use Transaction reservation on the VSAT inroutes. (TR give round trip
> times of about 1500msec). We don't have any choice, we cannot use Stream for all
> remote sites. Is there a way to improve the performance, we know for example the
> product Venturi (from Fourelle) but that product turns the HTTP protocol into
> something proprietary protocol. What I'm trying to find out is : are there
> tunings possible to the existing standard HTTP protocol ?
> 
> Many Thanks,
> Guy Raymakers

Yes - here are some of our pointers regarding that:

"Analysis of HTTP Performance,"
      Joe Touch, John Heidemann, and Katia Obraczka, ISI Research Report ISI/RR-98-463, 
      Aug. 1998 (original report dated Aug. 1996). 
      http://www.isi.edu/touch/pubs/http-perf96/

"Modeling the Performance of HTTP Over Several Transport Protocols."
      John Heidemann, Katia Obraczka, and Joe Touch.
      ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking, 5 5, 616-630, October, 1997. 
      http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Heidemann97b.html

"Performance Interactions Between P-HTTP and TCP Implementations"
      John Heidemann.ACM Computer Communication Review, 27 2, 65-73, April,
      1997. 
      http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Heidemann96b.html

Joe