8

Chapter 2

Background

In this chapter, we illustrate a generic architecture of a cluster based Web server

and a cluster based data center, which are the main infrastructure studied in this the 

sis. Usually intra cluster communications are facilitated by a low overhead and high

bandwidth user level communication scheme. Thus, the concept of the user level com 

munication is summarized in this chapter.

2.1

Cluster based Web Servers

Node 1 

client 

Network Interface 

Controller 

SAN 

client 

Node 2 

Layer 4 or Layer 7 

client 

webswitch 

Network Interface 

Controller 

Disk 

Node N 

client 

Network Interface 

Controller 

Fig. 2.1. A Cluster based Web Server Architecture