Simulating e-Commerce Client-Server Interaction for Capacity Planning

TL;DR

This paper presents a discrete-event simulation model for e-Commerce client-server interactions to aid capacity planning and ensure high QoS levels, helping sites meet customer expectations and predict future performance needs.

Contribution

It introduces a predictive simulation model for e-Commerce performance assessment, integrating client-server processes for capacity planning.

Findings

Simulation effectively predicts performance metrics under varying workloads

Model helps identify capacity bottlenecks and optimize resource allocation

Performance metrics correlate with workload intensity and quality

Abstract

Contemporary ways of doing business are heavily dependent on the e-Commerce/e-Business paradigm. The highest priority of an e-Commerce Web site's management is to assure pertinent Quality-of-Service (QoS) levels of their Web services continually, in order to keep the potential e-Customers satisfied. Otherwise, it faces an immense possibility of losing both e-Customers and revenues, along with a big possibility of gaining bad reputation due to either poor performance or unavailability of the e-Commerce Web site. In order to avoid numerous unpleasant consequences, by designing and implementing e-Commerce Web sites that will always meet e-Customer's high expectations, a relevant performance models have to be utilized to obtain appropriate performance metrics. A continuous assessment of current performances and especially predicting future needs are the subjects of capacity planning methodologies. Within this paper, such a predictive model has been described and evaluated by using discrete-event simulation of both the client-side and server-side processes involved. In addition, the paper discusses the performance metrics obtained as a function of the intensity and quality of the workload parameters.