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<TITLE>GlobalNOW Benchmark, initial results</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Well, it's been about a week since I announced the start of the GlobalNOW benchmarking project, and I'm pretty sure some of you checked it out. Thank you all for taking a look at the web pages where the benchmarking is being done (<A HREF="http://www.nationalinformatics.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.nationalinformatics.com</A> and <A HREF="http://www.affiliatedhealth.org" TARGET="_blank">http://www.affiliatedhealth.org</A>). The GlobalNOW benchmarking project is designed to determine a simple, but useful metric of the potential processing power that can be harnessed from the typical Java (tm) Virtual Machine running on multiple browsers at the same time. If you would like more information about the project, check out the project's home web site at <A HREF="http://www.nationalinformatics.com/GlobalNOW" TARGET="_blank">http://www.nationalinformatics.com/GlobalNOW</A>.</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>GENERAL OBSERVATIONS</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>The raw data can be found at <A HREF="http://www.nationalinformatics.com/download/tblBenchmarkLog.txt" TARGET="_blank">http://www.nationalinformatics.com/download/tblBenchmarkLog.txt</A> in ASCII delimited format. After such a short time, it's difficult to conclude anything earthshaking, but looking at the data at this point indicates a few things.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* For the benchmarking to work at the National Informatics web site, it is necessary for the browser's user to set permissions of the browser so that the applet has access to all network addresses. If not, a security exception is generated. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* The record breaker for calculations per second is without a doubt connecting from www.appliedthermalsciences.com (IP 207.5.141.74) at a peak rate of 189878 calculations per second. Did the browser's virtual machine get an injection of steroids?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* Beyond the appliedthermalsciences.com browser, the highest rate of computation came from the local host (client address 127.0.0.1). No surprise here. Be aware that the data includes some testing data, which can be identified by the host address and remote address of the client (they're both 127.0.0.1). </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* The data is comprised of 1,255 visits were recorded between 10/13 and 10/27. The web site this was done on (<A HREF="http://www.affiliatedhealth.org" TARGET="_blank">http://www.affiliatedhealth.org</A>) is certainly not a high traffic web site. So if this were done, say on the NASA web site, we would expect better calculation rates.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* The only browsers that the project has captured are IE, and Java (which may or may not be an actual web browser). Netscape nor any of the other brosers ran the benchmark for whatever reason.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>* Some visitors to the web site have noticed slower performance. This could be due to higher web site traffic in general, but also due to the time it takes the Java applet to load. We are in the process of getting the bandwidth upgraded, which will help me determine why the site is slower now.</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>RAW DATA</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Here's a legend for the columns in the raw data file (http://www.nationalinformatics.com/download/tblBenchmarkLog.txt):</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>ID Unique identifier for the record</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Column Name Description</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>DocumentLocation The web page that recorded this benchmark.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CGI_HTTP_HOST The address of the host.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CGI_REMOTE_ADDR The client address.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CGI_HTTP_USER_AGENT Name of the client (e.g Mozilla, IE4, Netscape).</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>BENCHMARK_NAME Name of the benchmark taken</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>RUN_DATE Date and time the benchmark was recorded</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CALCULATIONS Number of calculations performed. NOTE: One calculation is equivilant to about 15 operations (memory stores, additions, memory references, etc. . .) in the algorithm.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>RUNNING_TIME The number of milliseconds the applet run</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CALCULATIONRATE The number of calculations per second</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>AVERAGE_MEMORY The average amount of free memory in kilobytes available while the applet was running</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>DEBUG Indicates if DEBUG is set to ON or OFF.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>The file is ASCII, character delimited (the delimiter is the vertical bar "|").</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>THE GLOBALNOW PROJECT</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>GlobalNOW is the name I've given to the software technology I've developed that allows an unlimited number of Internet browsing workstations to become part of a Network Of Workstations (NOW) hardware cluster. This is consistent with the definition of a Beowulf class machine, which has a head node and several child nodes running processes. Under the GlobalNOW strategy, the head node is the web server itself, and the child nodes are ordinary web browsers running a Java (tm) Virtual Machine that visit the web site. The visiting browsers become nodes in the GlobalNOW cluster by uploading a standard Java Applet from the web server, performing a set of calculations and then returning the results to the web server via the HTTP protocol.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>It is theoretically possible to harness massive amounts of computing power by using GlobalNOW technology on high traffic web servers. The GlobalNOW benchmark is designed to give everyone an idea of what kind of power to expect were we to roll out the technology on a high traffic web site, such as the NASA web site. Using Java applets in this way is a safe method of attaining processing power instantly. The security model used by Java applets makes it possible to perform reliable, secure processing using any web browser that correctly implements the Java Virtual Machine. Also, there is no hardware to install (unless you need a new web server), and virtually no cost to develop the software, save people time. </FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Let me know if you have any questions.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Richard Schilling</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Webmaster/Web Integration Programmer</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Affiliated Health Services</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Mount Vernon, WA</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>rschilling@affiliatedhealth.org</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="http://www.affiliatedhealth.org" TARGET="_blank">http://www.affiliatedhealth.org</A></FONT>
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