In search of invariants for e-business workloads

Understanding the nature and characteristics of e-business workloads is a crucial step to improve the quality of service offered to customers in electronic business environments. However, the variety and complexity of the interactions between customers and sites make the characterization of ebusiness workloads a challenging problem. Using a multilayer hierarchical model, this paper presents a detailed characterization of the workload of two actual e-business sites: an online bookstore and an electronic auction site. Through the characterization process, we found the presence of autonomous agents, or robots, in the workload and used the hierarchical structure to determine their characteristics. We also found that search terms follow a Zipf distribution.