Send request, get response: How hard can the Web really be?

Abstract

The Web is the first interactive distributed system of truly global scale. In this talk, I will argue that the interactive nature of the Web coupled with its scale presents unique challenges to systems and network designers. After a brief introduction into the nuts and bolts behind the Web, I will discuss how these challenges led to interesting developments in Web caching, Web hosting, content delivery networks, and interaction between various protocols that comprise the Web. On the way, I will highlight my contributions to these areas.