Web Content Delivery

The concept of content delivery (also known as content distribution) is be­ coming increasingly important due to rapidly growing demands for efficient distribution and fast access of information in the Internet. Content delivery is very broad and comprehensive in that the contents for distribution cover a wide range of types with significantly different characteristics and performance concerns, including HTML documents, images, multimedia streams, database tables, and dynamically generated contents. Moreover, to facilitate ubiqui­ tous information access, the network architectures and hardware devices also vary widely. They range from broadband wired/fixed networks to bandwid- constrained wireless/mobile networks, and from powerful workstations/PCs to personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellular phones with limited processing and display capabilities. All these levels of diversity are introducing numerous challenges on content delivery technologies. It is desirable to deliver contents in their best quality based on the nature of the contents, network connections and client devices. This book aims at providing a snapshot of the state-of-the-art research and development activities on web content delivery and laying the foundations for future web applications. The book focuses on four main areas: (1) web con­ tent delivery; (2) dynamic web content; (3) streaming media delivery; and (4) ubiquitous web access. It consists of 17 chapters written by leading experts in the field. The book is designed for a professional audience including academic researchers and industrial practitioners who are interested in the most recent research and development activities on web content delivery.

The concept of content delivery has become increasingly more important due to rapidly growing demands for efficient distribution and fast access of information from the Internet. The content can be diverse, ranging from HTML documents, images, multimedia streams, database tables to dynamically generated contents. Moreover, to facilitate ubiquitous information access, the varied network architectures and hardware devices can include broadband wired/fixed networks, bandwidth constrained wireless/mobile networks, powerful workstations/PCs, PDAs and cellular phones. The need to deliver quality information--given the nature of the content, network connections and client devices--introduces various challenges for content delivery technologies.

Web Content Delivery offers the most comprehensive coverage of state-of-the-art research, providing insightful and thought-provoking possibilities for the future of web applications. Written by leading international researchers, the book focuses on web content delivery, dynamic web content, streaming media delivery and ubiquitous web access, addressing specific topics such as:

Web Workload Characterization: Ten Years Later

Replica Placement and Request Routing

The Time-to-Live Based Consistency Mechanism

Content Location in Peer-to-Peer Systems: Exploiting Locality

Techniques for Efficiently Serving and Caching Dynamic Web Content

Utility Computing for Internet Applications

Proxy Caching for Database-Backed Web Sites

Generating Internet Streaming Media Objects and Workloads

Streaming Media Caching

Policy-Based Resource Sharing in Streaming Overlay Networks

Caching and Distribution Issues for Streaming Content Distribution Networks

Peer-to-Peer Assisted Streaming Proxy

Distributed Architectures for Web Content Adaptation and Delivery

Wireless Web Performance Issues

Web Content Delivery Using Thin-Client Computing

Optimizing Content Delivery in Wireless Networks

Multimedia Adaptation and Browsing on Small Displays

 

Web Content Delivery is an essential reference for both academic researchers and industrial practitioners dealing with web content delivery.