Use available benchmarking software like Big Brother to optimize your system. Your current testing scheme may become invalid if you uncover network anomalies (or are you looking for network anomalies?). Have a simple script pound your webserver locally (assuming that it's a dedicated webserver) or over a connection that is otherwise dead of traffic. Every machine most likely has an IP (metaserver setup, right?), so use that in your call to LWP::Simple. Fork a multitude of fake browsers and see how many concurrent hits the server can take. Do this with all the machines and compare results. Good luck.

I just thought of an easier way. I believe most webservers have some benchmarking capabilites. In that case, throw a benchmark patch onto the metaserver to time how much each serve is taking in response to the same web page being retrieved repeatedly. You'll be easily able to pick out the slow poke!

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