Improving Site Speed, Performance, and Ultimately, User Satisfaction

Caching: Things You Need to Know

A cache is the temporary but special storage space that makes an app or browser of a device run efficiently and faster.

Have you ever troubleshoot anything on the computer or have cleared the browsing history? Then you definitely must have come across a message related to cache. You might have been prompted to clear it.

But what is cache, and how it is beneficial for you? Here you will come to know everything about cache and why is it important for modern-day technology.

What are the benefits of caching?

What Does Caching Mean?

A cache is the reserved storage location that stores temporary data to help browsers, apps, and websites load faster. No matter it’s your phone, laptop, computer, or app, you are sure to find a cache in every device.

It is due to the cache that you retrieve data easily. It also makes a device run faster. A cache is just like a memory bank that makes it easier for you to retrieve data rather than re-downloading it whenever you launch the app or visit the website. The technology is quite ubiquitous these days.

Before deciding on the caching layer, it is necessary to ask yourself a few questions.

  • Which businesses uses-cases in the system that needs high throughput, low latency, and fast response?
  • What type of data would you like to store?
  • Are you ready for the data inconsistency in case you use the cache?
  • Do you have to maintain a cache for master or transactional data?
  • Do you require an open-source framework or commercial cache solutions?

Caching in the right manner helps the content providers, as well as the content consumers. Some of the benefits of caching have been given below.

Decrease Network Cost

You can cache content at different points in the network path between the origin’s content and the consumer’s content. If the content is cached closer to a consumer, requests are going to cause much-added network activity beyond the cache.

Enhances Responsiveness

With caching, you can retrieve content faster as the whole network round trip isn’t necessary. All caches that are stored close to the user, such as browser cache makes the retrieval almost instantaneous. Facebook app is the perfect example that uses a cache to store the images and shows them even when you are offline.

Improves Performance

For the server where the content had been created, better performance can be facilitated by enabling aggressive caching. The creator or owner of the content can leverage the robust servers along the delivery path for taking the brunt of specific content loads.

24/7 Avalability of Content

Since certain policies are in place, the cache can be used for serving content to the end-users even when it isn’t available for a shorter time from the server it originated from.

Examples of Caching usage in many scenarios

Top Caching Strategies

Different strategies can be used for the cache. Every strategy has a different effect on the system and its ultimate performance. So, before designing the architecture, check the data that has to be obtained. This helps in deciding which strategy is best for you. A few of the adopted ones have been discussed below.

  • Read Through:
    In this case, the cache is in between the database and the application. The application is only going to ask for data from the cache. In case a cache miss occurs, the cache is responsible for retrieving data using the database. It will update itself and is going to return the data to the base application.
  • Cache Aside:
    In the cache aside strategy, the cache is placed aside from the database. First, the application requests data from the cache. In case the data exists, the app is going to retrieve the data directly. If it doesn’t, the app is going to request it from the database. Thereafter, it is going to write to the cache. This way, data can be access from the cache the next time.
  • Write Through:
    It is just like a read-through strategy. In this strategy, the cache is placed in between. Any write from the app that needs to go to the database is passed via the cache.
  • Write Around:
    This usually combines either with a read-through or cache aside strategy. Data in the read state will go to cache.
Pitfalls of Caching and How to Clear Your Cache

Clearing Your Cache

However, the cache also comes with some disadvantages. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

  • The primary disadvantage of caching is that clients can look for stale data. This can happen because of a lack of proxy updating.
  • The access latency can increase in case the cache goes missing because of some additional proxy processing. Thus, while designing the cache system, the cache hit rate needs to be maximized, and the cost of cache miss needs to be minimized.
  • A single proxy can be the point of failure as is a bottleneck. A limit has to be set for the number of clients a proxy will be able to serve.

Now that you know what is caching data, you might clear the app or system cache to maintain them. In case a cache becomes too large, or if the computer starts running low on space, the issue can affect the performance of the device.

Thus, the best way to mitigate this is to clear the cache. This will delete the files that are stored in the cache. In case you are clearing the cache, the program that owns the cache will make the options available to you somewhere in settings. You can clear the cache of your browser, social media profiles, apps, system, etc.

If you clear it out, you can free up storage space on the computer or phone. So, it will get rid of the files that were making it slow.

But, remember, it can also delete the files that were making your computer run efficiently. For instance, when you clear the browser cache, it means you will have to log into the frequented websites all over again. Also, if you have customized or personalized a few details on these websites, such as adding content to the shopping cart, everything will be gone.

Nevertheless, if you experience a problem with the PC, Mac, or mobile device, it is better to clear the cache.

Caching