Design and evaluation of a system that coordinate clients to use the same server

Abstract: This thesis present a system which examine when clients should select a new server to maximize the number of packets received with the fewest number of server selections. The ratio between the number of packets received and the number of server selections should therefore be as high as possible. To help minimize the number of server selections, the system should be adaptive if the conditions would change. We construct a server selection mechanism which guarantees agreement between clients when called upon by the system. Furthermore, four policies have been created for when the mechanism is to be called. The purpose of this is to find out when and how it is best to switch server and how they can adapt to varying connection failure rates between server and clients. We evaluate the system by running simulations concluding that the policy we call on demand is best, which calls the server selection mechanism when clients have no connection to the server. This policy is the best if the aim is to send as many packets as possible and that the server selection mechanism is called few times with adaption to varying connection failure rates. This would enable the system to provide information even if the conditions will change to the better or to the worse.