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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