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Cooperative Caching: Using Remote Client Memory to Improve File System Performance


Michael D. Dahlin, Randolph Y. Wang,
Thomas E. Anderson, David A. Patterson
University of California at Berkeley
{dahlin, rywang, tea, patterson}@cs.berkeley.edu

Abstract

Emerging high-speed networks will allow machines to access remote data nearly as quickly as they can access local data. This trend motivates the use of cooperative caching: coordinating the file caches of many machines distributed on a LAN to form a more effective overall file cache. In this paper we examine four cooperative caching algorithms using a trace-driven simulation study. These simulations indicate that for the systems studied coopera- tive caching can halve the number of disk accesses, improving file system read response time by as much as 73%. Based on these simulations we conclude that cooper- ative caching can significantly improve file system read response time and that relatively simple cooperative cach- ing algorithms are sufficient to realize most of the poten- tial performance gain.


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