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 cooperative 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 cooperative caching
can significantly improve file system read response time and that
relatively simple cooperative caching algorithms are sufficient to
realize most of the potential performance gain.