Dynamic cache invalidation scheme for wireless mobile environments

Abstract

The caching of frequently accessed data items on the client side is an effective technique to improve performance in a mobile environment. Caching data in a wireless mobile computer can significantly reduce the bandwidth requirement. However, cache content needs to be validated; classical cache invalidation strategies are not suitable for mobile environments due to the disconnection frequency and mobility of the mobile clients. Attractive cache invalidation techniques are based on invalidation reports (IRs). But, IR-based cache invalidation schemes result in considerable consumption of uplink and download bandwidth. In this paper, we address these problems by presenting a new energy-efficient cache invalidation method for the wireless mobile environment. The new cache invalidation scheme is called Adaptive Energy Efficient Cache Invalidation Scheme (AEECIS). The algorithm is adaptive since it changes the data dissemination strategy based on the current conditions. To reduce the bandwidth requirement, the server transmits in one of three modes: slow, fast or super-fast. The mode is selected based on thresholds specified for time and the number of clients requesting updated objects. An efficient implementation of AEECIS is presented and simulations have been carried out to evaluate its caching effectiveness. The results demonstrate that it can substantially improve mobile caching by reducing the communication bandwidth (thus energy consumption) for query processing. Also, the reported results demonstrate that compared to previous IR-based schemes, AEECIS can significantly improve the bandwidth consumption and the number of uplink requests.