METHOD FOR ADAPTING INTERNET WEB SERVER TO SHORT-TERM CHANGES IN DEMAND

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for making a web site cope with substantially instantaneous changes in demand. SOLUTION: Servelets within a web server maintain state information concerning requests made by users of a server. The servelets associate each user with an HTTP session object. The session object is configured to include information for identifying the last-N web pages requested by the user. The server analyzes the contents of the session objects by tabulating the frequency, with which each web page has recently requested periodically or in response to a triggering event. From the results of the analysis, web-page caching priorities are determined and the contents of the server's cache are altered accordingly.