An Efficient Web Caching Algorithm based
on LFU-K replacement policy
© Vladimir V. Prischepa
Chelyabinsk State University
vladimir@csu.ac.ru
PhD advisor: Leonid B. Sokolinsky
Abstract
In this paper we analyse effectiveness of LFU-K
replacement policy for the purposes of caching
on proxy servers and give the results of traces
analysis taken from real proxy servers to reveal
a set of properties of network traffic. On the ba-
sis of the analysis we have drawn a conclusion
about expediency of usage of LFU-K policy
which uses information about dynamic change
of document popularity, for Web caching. The
scheme of LFU-K policy is given as well as re-
sults of experiments aimed to compare its effec-
tiveness with the most popular replacement al-
gorithms.
1. Introduction.
In the last decade intensive growth of information vol-
umes in the World-Wide-Web has led to the problem of
network loads. Development of technical means for
transmitting data and their introduction into practice do
not correspond with the Internet growth. Hence, there is a
need to find other approaches to solve the problem of
network loads.
The common method of solution without drawing ad-
ditional technical means is via caching Web objects (text,
image, etc.). Web documents are subdivided into two
types: static and dynamic. Most of the Web objects are
static documents which can be stored in a certain data
‘storage’, i.e. a cache, for the further usage. While reac-
cessing these documents the proxy server checks whether
there have been any modifications on the source site and
if there have not been any, the user has the page
downloaded right from the cache.
Usage effectiveness of caching allows to use it on dif-
ferent levels such as Internet browser, proxy server of a
local net, Internet proxy server. Proxies serving a large
set of clients show the highest effectiveness of caching. It
Proceedings of the Spring Young Researcher's Collo-
quium on Database and Information Systems SYR-
CoDIS, St.-Petersburg, Russia, 2004
is connected with the fact that many Web users have cor-
relation in requests (common interests). Researches have
shown that 25-40% of all requested documents account
for 70% of users requests [2]. Moreover, the nets of ho-
mogeneous organisations (university, corporation, etc.)
have the highest correlation of requests.
While caching Web objects on proxy servers as well
as in other aspects of caching there appears a problem of
finite storage of the cache and hence, a necessity of mak-
ing room for new documents. A replacement policy de-
termines which object is to be removed from the cache.
Selection of an effective policy can considerably increase
caching effectiveness reducing network traffic by 20%
and more.
Difficulties in selecting a replacement policy are con-
nected with specific characteristics of the network traffic
which are the following [4]:
- HTTP protocol gives access only to files of full size,
i. e. a proxy server cache can satisfy the user’s request
only if the file has been stored completely (i.e. it can
not store incomplete objects).
- Documents stored in the proxy server cache are of
different size, from several bytes to hundreds of
megabytes.
- A stream of requests to the cache is a sum of streams
of requests of hundreds and thousands of users.
Because sizes of documents are different there is a
need to introduce a new metric of effectiveness called
Byte Hit Rate apart from Hit Rate policy as the basic
metric of effectiveness. Byte Hit Rate is computed as a
ratio of amount of bytes derived from the proxy cache to
the total amount of bytes requested by the user.
Because of difference in documents sizes metric sug-
gested by Byte Hit Rate is the most adequate to deter-
mine the policy effectiveness as it is the one that shows
the savings in network traffic.
 Percent requests (BU) Percentage of requests for 20% most popular objects
(BU).

1,8% 1,2%
26,5% 23,3%
26,2% 27,6%
less than 1 Kbyte less than 1 Kbyte
1-5 Kbyte 1-5 Kbyte
5-100 Kbyte 5-100 Kbyte
more than 100 Kbyte more than 100 Кбайт

45,5%
47,9%

Figure 1. Percentage of requests for objects depending Figure 2. Percentage of requests for the most popular
on their size (BU trace). objects depending on their size.

Theoretical distribution and requests distribution

in the real trace

12000
Percent traffic (BU)
BU -Trace
10000
Zipf 80-20
1,6% 7,5%
8000
Access

less than 1 Kbyte

1-5 Kbyte 6000

52,5%
5-100 Kbyte
38,4% more than 100 Kbyte 4000

2000

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27
Page num ber

Figure 3. Percentage of traffic in all BU trace, depend- Figure 4. Comparison of theoretical distribution and
ing on the size of objects. requests distribution in the real BU trace.

showing the lack of correlation between the size of a

2. Proxy traces analysis.
We have thoroughly analysed traces and found out a set
of regularities. Most of the requested objects are of a
small size up to 5 kilobytes (see Figure 1). This property
of traces serves a basis of most of the up-to-date re-
placement policies for the proxy server (GD-Size [3],
GDSF [4], LRV, SIZE and others). In these policies the
most significant parameter to calculate the rating of ob-
jects is the document size that is the smaller is the size of
a document the longer it is stored in the cache and vice
versa, the bigger is its size, the sooner it is removed. But
such an approach has its disadvantages.
Firstly, the Figure 2 shows that percentage of requests
for the most popular documents depending on their size
practically does not change in comparison with all the
documents. That is a conclusion can be drawn that docu-
ments of different sizes can be popular with the same
probability. This conclusion corresponds with researches
document and its popularity [2].
Secondly, another disadvantage is that traffic gener-
ated by small-size documents (up to 5 Kb) is small in
comparison with one generated by big-size documents
(more than 5 Kb) (see Figure 3). Such a correlation con-
cerns both the whole trace and the most popular objects.
Thus, small-size objects caching leads to high effective-
ness in Hit Rate metric and not high one in Byte Hit Rate.
But as it has been pointed out high indices in Byte Hit
Rate exactly imply policy effectiveness from the point of
view of decrease in network traffic volume.
Another significant characteristic is that showing
probability change of accesses to documents. In relatively
small parts of the trace (see Figure 4) the probability of
page requests submits to Zipf-like distribution, or rule
“80-20” [2] (80% of requests are addressed to 20% of
documents). But in larger parts of the trace significant
changes in many of the most popular objects take place.
Some of the documents lose their popularity, some be-
come more popular.
 B U trace
0,45
0,4
0,35
Byte Hit Rate
0,3
0,25
0,2
0,15
50 100 150 200
C ache size
Figure 5. Byte Hit Rate of BU trace
For example, Boston University trace, which we have
analysed, includes more than 250 thousand requests and
has clearly shown changes in many of the popular ob-
jects. Here we took 600 of the most popular objects in
the first and the second half of the trace to compare and
found out that two third of the objects are different.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that it is necessary
to use replacement policies aimed to distinguish
changes in object popularity. LRU policy exactly de-
termines changes in request probability in time but it is
quite primitive and does not correspond properly with
sharp changes in popularity. It should be pointed out
that several special replacement policies for proxy sev-
ers based upon changes in object popularity in time
have been worked out. For example, Pitkow/Recker
policy [6] is aimed to store documents accessed by the
user in current 24 hours, other documents are marked as
outdated and get removed. But it is evident that changes
in document popularity are more complicated.
3. LFU-1 algorithm.
We suggested using LFU-1 algorithm for proxy cach-
ing [7]. This algorithm takes into consideration specific
character of changes in objects popularity. LFU-1
turned out to be sufficient to show high effectiveness in
Byte Hit Rate.
Let us consider a succession of document requests
(later request corresponds with a smaller value of in-
dex). ri is a number of a document requested
r1 , r2 , …, rh , rh+1 , …, rm , …
ν(i) s(i)
Where ν(i) is amount of entries of page number i
into the latest h requests and s(i) is amount of entries of
page number i into the latest h requests.
Rating(i) = s(i) + v(i)*t; where t = m/h.
CSU trace
0,45
0,4
LR U
LRU
Byte Hit Rate
S IZE
0,35 GD_SIZE
G D _S IZE
GDSF GDSF
LFU -1 0,3 LFU-1
0,25
0,2
100 150 200
Cache size
Figure 6. Byte Hit Rate of CSU trace.
Using the formula above one can compute ratings of
all the pages in the cache. If there is no room in the
cache the least accessed document is replaced.
It should be pointed out that the best advantage of
this algorithm is determining object popularity both
during quite a long period of users accesses (the latest
m-requests) and a possibility to react quickly to appear-
ance of new popular objects (the latest h-requests).
Parameters for LFU-K algorithm were selected as
follows: m parameter was derived from analytical esti-
mations [7]. Value of h parameter was derived from
empirical results. In our experiment we set h=3000.
4. Experiment results.
We have compared LFU-1 policy with the most popular
policies of real proxy servers traces (see Figure 5 and
Figure 6). Results of two traces are given. They are
traces of Boston University (BU) and Chelyabinsk State
University (CSU).
As the Figures 5 and 6 show LFU-1 policy reflects
higher effectiveness in Byte Hit Rate in comparison
with other policies
5. Conclusion.
In this paper we have researched into effectiveness of
LFU-K policy for the purposes of caching on a proxy
server. The analysis of the traces demonstrates disad-
vantages of basic replacement policies in real systems.
In comparison with popular replacement policies
LFU-1 algorithm shows higher efficiency. The results
of the experiments allow to make a conclusion about
expediency of LFU-K algorithm on proxy servers in the
Web.
Evaluation of LFU-2 algorithm effectiveness repre-
sents a special interest in future.
We plan to try to raise effectiveness of caching
mechanism by means of combined replacement poli-
cies.
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