Benchmarking XML Based Application Oriented Network Infrastructure and Services

Abstract

Common application infrastructure services are shifting from back-end hosts to the network edges. Cisco Systems Application Oriented Networking (AON) initiative is an example of this emerging trend. Benchmarking such infrastructure and services is expected to play an important role in the networking industry. We present AONBench specifications and methodology to benchmark networked XML application servers and appliances. AONBench is not a benchmarking tool. It is a specification and methodology for performance measurements, which leverages from existing XML microbenchmarks and uses HTTP for end-to-end communication. We implement AONBench specifications for end-to-end performance measurements through public domain HTTP load generation tool ApacheBench and Apache web server. We present three case studies of using AONBench for architecting real application oriented networking products.

XML Document Parsing: Operational and Performance Characteristics

“…As Table 4 shows, XML parsing software throughput on a general-purpose processor ranges from 5 to 50 Mbytes per second, but enterprise software servers call for gigabit-per-second throughput rates. 9,10 To explore the different parsing models' hardware acceleration capabilities, it is necessary to understand their data structures.…”

Performance characterization of multi-thread and multi-core processors based XML application oriented networking systems

“…If this condition is evaluated to true, the message is forwarded to the intended endpoint; otherwise, it is forwarded to a default error handling endpoint. There are filler text elements to increase the overall message size to conform to the AONBench specified 5 Kbytes message size [14]. This specification uses only one Xpath.…”

“…Therefore, we need an end-to-end traffic load generator, XML services node, and load sink node infrastructure to exercise such a system. We conduct end-toend measurement through our AONBench [14], which is a benchmarking specification and tool for XML based application oriented network devices. We shall use three AONBench use cases for our Our server application provides these three services for incoming HTTP POST requests.…”

“…We require two server endpoints to distinguish a successfully executed use case from an unsuccessful execution. AONBench specification depends on incoming and outgoing XML message contents [14]. Therefore, success and failure of a use case can be decided by changing the incoming content and observing the server endpoint and contents of XML message arriving at those endpoints.…”

Intelligent Message Scheduling in Application Oriented Networking Systems

“…The Cisco Application Oriented Networking (AON) system [1], [2], [3] is one of the most recent industrial implementations. It is an intelligent message routing system that provides application-level communication, visibility, and security.…”