Network applications are critically dependent on the availability of adequate network bandwidth. Although tools are available for network load balancing, such as IBM's Network Dispatcher, these tools do not provide feedback to the client application to allow adjustment of network data requirements. Other tools are available to help a manager perform network tuning, but these are focused on setting static routing tables for specific network links. Although considerable work has been done recently towards estimating latency and path bandwidth, these efforts have been tied to specific applications or more often to an application designed for testing the various methods.

We have developed network tools that will enable application developers to create software which can self-adjust to changing network environments and server loads, in order to maximize network throughput and improve application response. With these tools, a client application can manage mirror server connections and dynamic network load adjustments. We have wrapped these techniques into a Java library that can be easily used by any developer. A Network Monitoring Service provides network load information (latency and bandwidth) and creates a Network Load Index (NLI) that a client can query allowing the application to self-configure to maximize network throughput and application response.