Flexible Caching Algorithms for Video Content Distribution Networks

Global video content distribution networks (CDNs) serve a significant fraction of the entire Internet traffic. Effective caching at the edge is vital for the feasibility of these CDNs, which can otherwise incur substantial costs and overloads in the Internet. We analyze the challenges and requirements for content caching on the servers of these CDNs which cannot be addressed by standard solutions. We design multiple algorithms for this problem: a LRU-based baseline to address the requirements; a flexible ingress-efficient algorithm; an offline cache aware of future requests (greedy) to estimate the maximum efficiency we can expect from any online algorithm; an optimal offline cache (for limited scales); and an adaptive ingress control algorithm for reducing the server’s peak upstream traffic. We use anonymized actual data from a global video CDN to evaluate the algorithms and draw conclusions on their suitability for different settings.