Effie Mouzeli, Wikimedia Foundation
Caching is the quiet workhorse of the web. It makes things faster. And mostly not broken. From edge CDNs to per-process memory stores, caching spoils end-users by accelerating content delivery and helping websites remain resilient under heavy traffic.
Sounds great. Until you try to explain it to someone.
This session offers a practical deep dive into industry-standard caching technologies and explores how the ongoing rise of the machines surge in LLM traffic is steadily sabotaging them. Structured around chapters and real-world, open-source examples, this talk covers both the underlying technology and the current challenges.
Effie spent several years in small organisations. Currently an SRE at the Wikimedia Foundation, she is counting Wikipedia’s rabbit holes so you don’t have to. [citation needed] She’s co-chaired SREcon23 and SREcon24 EMEA, and has been a long-time contributor. Her limited written work include a thesis no one read, a defunct Twitter account and sneaking a couple of articles into 97 Things Every SRE Should Know.
author = {Effie Mouzeli},
title = {Fifty Shades of Caching and How {LLMs} Paint It {Blαck}},
year = {2025},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = oct
}
