Efficient management of data in proxy cache

Abstract

Web proxy cache is an intermediate storage of Web objects deployed at a proxy server and shared by a group of clients. As a hidden storage place, the contents of a proxy cache are generally transparent to users who cannot find out what are currently available in cache. As a result, users usually surf/search the Web repeatedly for the same information that may have been retrieved by others and could be available from cache. Experiments show that more than 60% of total cache contents are never used and the low utilization rate is largely due to users' unawareness of the cache contents. In this paper, we propose a framework for efficient management of Web data in Squid proxy cache, where data in cache are managed both as physical objects as well as logical pages. The logical pages in cache are then indexed in terms of keywords and popularity and users can search the contents of cache directly. Object replacement policy based on the proposed content management scheme is also discussed.