Modeling client/server interactions by means of dynamic systems

The dynamic evolution of ecological systems in which predators and prey compete for survival has been investigated by applying suitable mathematical models. This kind of mathematical framework has been shown to be suited to describe evolution of economical systems as well, where instead of predators and prey there are consumers and resources. We believe that this kind of system, called dynamic systems, could be usefully applied to informatics context, for example to model the dynamic interactions of client/server systems, such as Internet users and Web servers. We present the general mathematical model, often referred to in biological and economics literature, and show how to apply dynamic systems theory to model client/server interactions in different system load conditions. Web clients compete to obtain some URLs from the server and the efficiency of the server decreases when the number of clients increases, in a similar way to predator and prey populations. The feasibility of this approach is supported by experimental results.