Ericsson releases Open Source Robust Web Site Software

Ericsson's new robust web site software, Eddie, is now available as
Open Source on http://www.eddieware.org. This software takes advantage
of Ericsson's telecom technology for making robust, non-stop,
distributed and scalable software.

Eddie is a suite of three software applications that together make web
sites robust and scalable. Each component works on its own, and all
three together cover for most glitches and errors possible in a web
site.

* Eddie Robust DNS Server
    - Load balances over the WAN
    - Robust and scalable in itself
    - Returns the least loaded IP server or the next server in turn
    - Bind/named compatible

* Eddie Robust Front-End
    - Load balances over the LAN
    - Enables admission control, rejecting or queuing access
      requests above the LAN capacity
    - Enables user sessions, so that active users are not thrown out
      by new accesses
    - Supports any ratio of front ends to HTTP back ends, from one
      front end per LAN (with fail over) to many front ends per
      machine
    - Receives HTTP 1.1 requests, deciphers them and separates the
      different parts of the requests, which are routed to the most
      suitable machines

* Eddie IP Migration Facility
    - Gives cluster-like functionality in a heterogeneous group of
      machines
    - Moves IP addresses and servers from a crashed machine to one of
      the other machines on a LAN
    - Servers reappearing after a crash reclaim their IP addresses and
      application processing.
    - As long as one machine with the right functionality is on line,
      that functionality is on line.

Eddie works on standard hardware, standard operating systems, standard
web back-ends, and standard web content. Eddie even works with
heterogeneous machines in a web site, handling different
functionality, different operating systems, and different hardware.

This software is a beta version. We've developed and tested it on
Pentium machines running Linux and Apache HTTP back ends. We plan to
build and test it on FreeBSD and Solaris as well as release a
distributed, actively replicated file server by December 8. By the end
of 1998, we plan to compile and test the NT version as well as
implement adaptive response time analysis in the DNS server.

Very preliminary performance tests with Web Stone show:

- - The Eddie DNS server, when running on a 166 MHz Pentium, handles 300
  requests/second with a modest memory footprint.
- - The Eddie Front End on a 166 MHz Pentium with Apache handles up to
  80-90 connections/second.
- - Scalability is linear - the front end on four similar machines
  handles up to 350 connections/second.

PLEASE HELP US!

We need:
    Comments! Please write us: team@eddieware.org
    Your experiences with the software.
    More functionality
    More ideas
    Testing on more configurations, with different hardware, and back
    ends.

The Eddie Group:
    Joakim Grebenö
    Anders Dahlin
    Magnus Fröberg
    Patrik Winroth
    Jane Walerud