Action Items

Problem Set 3 is due Monday, 28 October. You should be making good progress on this by now. If you have not yet done so, make sure to read through to the end. No one has yet claimed the "Open Piazza" extension, but hopefully someone will claim this soon.

Server Overload

If the rate of incoming requests exceeds the server's rate of processing requests, what can you do?

Why is it hard to solve problems by just throwing more resources at them?

When is horizontal partitioning better than vertical partitioning?

How should a server respond to a distributed denial-of-service attack?

What is (or should be?) the bottleneck resource for most web servers?

Networks

What should you do if you want to reduce the latency of your web server for important clients in Charlottesville?

What should you do if you want to increase the bandwidth of your web server for important clients in Charlottesville?

Why is it useful to have different protocol layers in a network?

What are the drawbacks of having different protocol layers?

How does the Internet prevent zombie packets?

For your zhtta server, which protocol layer is most inefficient?

Challenge. Find a host on the Internet whose latency from Charlottesville is higher than the latency to reach Bussleton, Austrailia. (Post in Piazza Forum.)

Links

History of Packets by Robbie Hott

Tim Berners-Lee's Answers for Young People:

So do you think the Web is basically been a good idea or a bad one?

Some people point out that the Web can be used for all the wrong things. For downloading pictures of horrible, gruesome, violent or obscene things, or ways of making bombs which terrorists could use.

Other people say how their lives have been saved because they found out about the disease they had on the Web, and figured out how to cure it.

I think the main thing to remember is that any really powerful thing can be used for good or evil. Dynamite can be used to build tunnels or to make missiles. Engines can be put in ambulances or tanks. Nuclear power can be used for bombs or for electrical power.

So what is made of the Web is up to us. You, me, and everyone else.

Here is my hope.

The Web is a tool for communicating.

With the Web, you can find out what other people mean. You can find out where they are coming from.

The Web can help people understand each other.

Think about most of the bad things that have happened between people in your life. Maybe most of them come down to one person not understanding another. Even wars.

Let's use the web to create neat new exciting things.

Let's use the Web to help people understand each other.