A Semantic-based Cache Replacement Algorithm for Mobile File Access

The ability to stay continually connected, due to the ubiquitous availability of a wide variety of networks, is a present day reality. Yet the convenience and transparency of distributed file systems across heterogeneous networks have a long way to go. In this paper, we examined the cache replacement algorithm on the clientside by taking the low-bandwidth connection into consideration. Motivated by the file access patterns in distributed file systems, we have proposed a novel caching replacement algorithm that takes both interand intrafile semantics into consideration when making caching replacement decisions. Not only does our approach perform better than conventional algorithms in terms of the hit rate, but also it reduces the number of cache replacements significantly, which results in a big saving on the synchronization-related communication overhead, essential to the effectiveness of mobile file access.