In computing, web caching is the temporary storage of files, such as HTML documents and images, by a computer for later retrieval. Web caching provides reduced bandwidthconsumption, because there are fewer requests and responses transmitted over the network, reduced requests to the individual servers, and faster responses files as for cached requests are available immediately, and are closer to the user. Web caching takes various forms. The simplest is the cache often present in the software used by the user on their own computer for retrieving web pages, the web browser. Further along the network are proxy caches and on some servers server caches which reduce the number of requests made to the actual web server software program. Typically, most internet service providers (ISPs) utilise a proxy cache to greatly reduce the network traffic from their computers to the rest of the network. It has been reported that in some cases a proxy cache can issue as many as 80% of requested files.
In practise, if two or more users from an ISP, such as perhaps Comcast, both try to access the same web site during a short period of time, perhaps on the same day, the web site files will be transferred along the network to the ISP on the first request, taking a little time, but the second and subsequent users will be served the files straight from the ISPproxy cache, without the need to fetch the files again from the remote web site server. Research Web Caching
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Abbreviations
Research Web Caching
