WebGrid: A new paradigm for Web system

Abstract

World Wide Web is one of the most important applications on the Internet. Net surfers can browse the Web pages by tracing the links embedded in the hypertexts. However, one will be stuck when there are no hyperlinks or the hyperlinks are broken. This paper proposes a new paradigm for Web system called WebGrid, which consists of a dynamic collection of Web servers that work cooperatively. WebGrid synchronizes the Web contents that are usually stored in the underlying database systems in order to provide a uniform view of all resources. Net surfers can retrieve all resources in the WebGrid through one local Web server. The paper addresses WebGrid architecture and some related concepts. Key issues such as the WebGrid topology, the resource synchronization mechanism and strategy, as well as the Web site customization are also discussed in the paper. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.