System and method for supervising use of shared storage by multiple caching servers physically connected through a switching router to said shared storage via a robust high speed connection
First Claim
1. A caching system for local storage of objects originating from one or more remote origin servers, comprising:
- a cluster of caching server appliances for retrieving objects requested by clients from a storage hierarchy of sources including dedicated local storage, shared local storage, and remote servers, and for retaining cached copies of selected said objects in said dedicated local storage and said shared local storage, wherein said caching server appliances are physically integrated;
said plurality of dedicated local stores, each associated with a respective said caching server appliance for providing a respective said dedicated local storage to said respective caching server appliance;
said shared local store accessible to all said caching server appliances for providing said shared local storage, wherein said caching server appliances are physically connected through a switching router to said shared local store via a robust high speed connection; and
a supervisor appliance responsive to all object requests from said clients for determining when a particular object stored in said shared local store should be replaced with another object.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A special-purpose appliance (SPA) works in conjunction with a server farm consisting of multiple caching server appliances (CSAs) to supervise a local storage medium (i.e., a shared cache) that is accessible by all the CSAs for storing at least some of the remote objects such as web pages and their embedded objects and/or streaming media objects that have been and/or will be served by one or more of the CSAs to its respective clients. The SPA preferably also determines when to prefetch remote objects such as web pages and their embedded objects and/or streaming media objects that are not currently stored in the shared cache, but which the SPA has determined are likely to be requested in the future by one or more of the CSAs one behalf of one or more of the CSA'"'"'s respective clients. In that regard, the SPA (and/or PSA) does not merely monitor the file requests from each CSA to the remote servers, but rather monitors and aggregates the individual requests from each client to its respective CSA, for example, by monitoring the access logs of each CSA and using that data to decide what to prefetch into the shared cache from the remote server or servers, what is still of value and needs to be updated, and what is no longer of value and can be replaced. What it prefetches can be based, for example, on links present in an already requested web page, on patterns of recent accesses to web pages and streaming media objects, on user profiles, and on past trends.
273 Citations
27 Claims
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1. A caching system for local storage of objects originating from one or more remote origin servers, comprising:
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a cluster of caching server appliances for retrieving objects requested by clients from a storage hierarchy of sources including dedicated local storage, shared local storage, and remote servers, and for retaining cached copies of selected said objects in said dedicated local storage and said shared local storage, wherein said caching server appliances are physically integrated;
said plurality of dedicated local stores, each associated with a respective said caching server appliance for providing a respective said dedicated local storage to said respective caching server appliance;
said shared local store accessible to all said caching server appliances for providing said shared local storage, wherein said caching server appliances are physically connected through a switching router to said shared local store via a robust high speed connection; and
a supervisor appliance responsive to all object requests from said clients for determining when a particular object stored in said shared local store should be replaced with another object. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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12. The system of claim , wherein
a single conventional origin server API is provided between each of said origin server and said cluster, thereby providing the origin server with a single virtual caching appliance.
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17. A method for caching objects originating from one or more remote origin servers, comprising:
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retrieving at least two different objects requested by at least two different clients from remote servers;
caching first copies of each of two different retrieved objects in respective different local stores of different caching server appliances of a cluster of caching server appliances, wherein said caching server appliances are physically integrated;
caching second copies of the two different retrieved objects in the same shared local store, wherein said caching server appliances are physically connected through a switching router to said shared local store via a robust high speed connection; and
independently determining when each of said first and second copies should be replaced with other cached objects. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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Specification