Web Caching: what is it?

What is that and what’s it for?

Web cache is a vital instrument to build lightning-fast web apps. Web cache stores HTTP responses that may be provided to the user without making a request to the server, i.e. no ASP/PHP scripts execution and database queries are necessary. And that’s cool!
Web-caching allows to substantially reduce response time — time the server needs to give the response — as reading from cache is much faster than processing request with PHP handler.
Web-caching minimizes traffic — if one uses intermediate caches (gateway or proxy cache), request won’t reach the origin server — response will be given back by an intermediate caching server.

Cache breeds

Server cache

This cache works on the origin server. Applications and server itself use it to store parts of responses (e.g. web pages) or complete responses. Server cache may be used on application (e.g. memcached + php or HttpRuntime.Cache + ASP.NET) or HTTP server level (e.g. mod_cache in Apache, OutputCache in IIS7).

Proxy cache

It lives between clients and origin servers and may only store public representations that do not require authorization (unlike private representations). Proxy cache is widely used by providers to reduce traffic.

Browser cache

It lives in browser and is capable of storing private data. Browser cache is used for example for Back button operation.

How does Server Cache work?

Cacheless configuration

Cacheless configuration forces server to process each incoming request and generate new response even if the same resource is requested several times running. That is senseless time- and resources-consuming operation that puts excessive load on the server.

First request to cache-enabled server

When the specific resource is requested from the server for the first time caching system checks if it’s possible to cache the response, then it looks for response in cache and fails to find it. Request moves further along the server pipeline triggering necessary handlers and filters. When the response is ready caching system saves it to cache before sending to the client.

Subsequent requests to cache-enabled server

Upon further requests to this resource caching system checks if it’s possible to cache the response, then it looks for response in cache and this time finds it! Then the response is retrieved from cache and sent to the client. And that’s it! No server handlers and filters are executed.
Responses are stored in cache for a certain period of time. When this time elapses cached response is labeled as not valid and is removed from cache. Next request to that same resource is processed as if it is requested from the server for the first time (see “First request to cache-enabled server’).

Conclusion

As you could see, Server Cache favors lower server load and faster response time. In the next article concerning cache we’ll give more thorough explanation of this process and illustrate it with examples.