Web Servers Run Faster with the Bee Dance
Scientists have figured out a way to cut down delays when internet surfers are trying to access popular sites and as a result have increased revenues by 20% for one web hosting company. In order to improve the internet server response time to changing user demand, scientists modeled the server system after the dance that honey bees do in order to redirect their fellow bees to more plentiful nectar. It’s called the waggle dance and the end result is a way to redirect the hive’s workforce at that moment to a flower patch with a better nectar supply, directing the bees to the type of flower, distance, and direction. For the bees, this “feedback loop” continually identifies the shifts in nectar allocation and works to equalize their retrieval system.
Web-Hosting companies assign certain servers to internet sites. Spikes in user demand flood the designated server for that site thus causing lockouts or delays, while other servers sit idle. Users leave the site in frustration taking the potential for revenue generating activities with them. Researchers have applied the bees idea of feedback to allocate more plentiful supply (in this case server space) to increase efficiency of the server system. The end result is increased revenues.
To learn more about the scientist advertisement system, which replaces the bees waggle dance, read Bryn Nelson’s column in MSNBC’s Technology & science.
