Comparison of Mobile and Fixed Device Workloads in an Academic Web Server

Data traffic volume from mobile devices has surpassed traditional desktops in recent years. A mobile versus fixed web workload characterization is much needed because the potentially different traffic patterns on mobile devices poses a new challenge that may have rendered past studies obsolete. In this paper, we present a longitudinal, comparative analysis on the mobile and fixed workloads of a large academic web server. With almost 9 billion requests in total, this is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest workload characterization study from a mobile versus fixed viewpoint. We find the diurnal traffic pattern to be weaker on mobile devices and the inter-reference, inter-session duration to be longer for mobile requests. Some comparable results were present across the device types but in most cases, workload characteristics differed between mobile and fixed device requests. Taking into account this mobile-fixed disparity is crucial to optimizing web server performance in the future as mobile traffic grows.