Web Caching

What You Will and Won’t Find Here

Chapter 1 introduces caching and provides some background material to help the rest of the book make sense. In addition, companies that provide caching products are listed here. In Chapter 2, we’ll dive into the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and explore its features for caching. Chapter 3 is relatively nontechnical and discusses some of the controversies that surround web caching, such as copyrights and privacy.

In Chapter 4, you’ll see the various ways to configure user agents (browsers) for caching, with a focus on Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Many administrators prefer to automatically intercept and divert HTTP connections to a cache. We’ll talk about that in Chapter 5. Then, in Chapter 6, we’ll turn to servers and see how content providers can make their information cache-friendly.

Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 are about cache hierarchies. First we’ll talk about them in general, including why you should or should not participate in a hierarchy. Then you’ll learn about the protocols caches use to communicate with each other. Chapter 9 is a short chapter about cache clusters. Although clusters have some things in common with cache hierarchies, it is easier to understand some of the nuances after you’ve learned about the intercache protocols.

In Chapter 10, I’ll walk you through some of the decisions you’ll face in procuring and building a caching service for your organization. Following that, Chapter 11 offers advice on monitoring ...