Web cache replacement policies: properties, limitations and implications

With the dramatic growth of the WWW, several caching policies were proposed in order to improve Web cache system performance. However, the study of caching policies has experimented a strong diminishing in the last few years. In this work we investigate whether new caching policies could improve a cache system performance. Moreover, by analyzing traces of real Web proxies located in different places of the Web, we evaluate the main factors that cause periods of poor performance in caching systems. Our results can be used to guide the design of new cache replacement policies for the WWW.