Catch as Cache Can A Spike Adams Mystery I sat in Uncle Wilber's Ice Cream Shoppe, peacefully scarfing down a huge hot fudge sundae. But as soon as I had finished my first bite, a beautiful woman plopped herself down at my tea table. This can't be happening to me, I thought quietly. I blinked once, then again. It was no daydream. There, across from me, sat a lady who looked as if she had just walked out of a magazine ad. She was tall, blonde, with perfect skin and cheekbones that aligned like the scales of true justice. She stifled a giggle as she looked at me, with my second spoonful of ice cream held in mid-air and dripping ridiculously on the table. I unfurled my tie with my other hand to examine it for collateral damage. This must have struck her as funny because she began giggling incontrollably, her perfect fingers slapping the table. Finally, she regained her composure. "Mister Adams, please forgive my intrusion. I was just coming to see you. I work next door, and I've heard such good things about you?" "Moi?" By now, my sundae had formed a little marbled pool on the table as it dripped from both sides of the cup. "Business?" "As a matter of fact, I was hoping you might explain `cache' to me," she asked. "The thingy on your browser?" "No, the thingy in my web server. -- By the way, I'm Amanda White. I sell swimsuits over the Net. Over there." She pointed to a tall building across the street. "Are you with the computer department?" "No, I own the company." Amanda White, as I learned, began her career as a model, amassed a score of female friends to sell swimsuits for her, and became a designer name on the Web under the slogan "Suit Yourself." Now she was looking to take her business abroad. "Do you think caching makes sense?" she asked. "Makes good sense," I replied. On the server side, caching means copying pages so that they can be transferred to locations on the Net where they can be served fast and conveniently. Cache offers a way to get around network overload. Combined with other distribution strategies, it allows networks to save on traffic charges, and to ensure consistency in content over a wide range of servers. This happens because the source server (for example, Amanda White's company server) "mirrors" out the original files to other servers, and these balance the "hits" to accommodate user traffic. In its simplest form, a cache serves as a holding area, a place to store often-viewed pages in anticipation of frequent hits. The cache can be on a company's home server, but it makes more sense to install it locally, that is, close to the location where users will be accessing it. Why have a signal cross an entire set of wide area networks when it can make an easy call to a local server? I explained to her the variety of software and hardware involved. Cache only makes sense if it's compatible with other network devices and if it seriously reduces the stresses on the overall system. A cache owner must also make sure pages remain identical at the source and destination servers. As I warmed to my subject, we both relaxed. Amanda ordered a banana split and I tried to ask her questions each time she wanted to take a bite. By the time we had finished talking, we were evenly splattered. I went to the washroom, and when I returned to my seat, she had paid the bill and left me an ice-cream-pocked check for two thousand dollars. On a napkin, she had scrawled a thank-you note, a smiling face with a cherry for a nose. Catch as cache can, I thought ruefully, pocketing the windfall. May 19, 1999