WWW AD Servers
Advertisement is the major money-making device on the WWW today.
Targeted advertisement involves a complex DB query to retrieve the “best” AD (most likely to be clicked on) based on the context of the Web page, user preferences, etc.
Serving an AD is subject to soft timing constraints. AD servers must be “deadline cognizant”, especially given the documented sporadic nature of Web traffic [Bestavros et al, 1995]