Re: decreased caching efficiency?

[Daniel Senie <dts () senie com>]

John Fraizer wrote:
> > In general, I think that theyre are way too many web-developers out there
> > who are ignorant of just how simple yet powerful the caching primitives
> > in HTTP/1.1 are, and too many companies who are just interested in more
> > damned traffic. :-)
> >
> > Adrian
> >
> > --
> > Adrian Chadd                  "It was then that I knew that I wouldn't
> > <adrian () creative net au>          die, as a doctor wouldn't fart in front
> >                                     of a dying boy." -- Angela's Ashes
>
> Adrian,
>
> On this end of the pond, many of us measure success with MRTG and can very
> accurately plot profits using the same OIDs.  You are absolutely
> right.  When you're in the business of selling bandwidth, that is what you
> are interested in.  Not being on the other end of a sat link helps I
> suppose.

It might be worth thinking about the problem from the other end. From a
web site owner's perspective, caching is a major annoyance. Here are the
arguments you may encounter from a web site owner or web developer:

1. It interferes with content in many cases (web site visitors may see
cached pages instead of current content). I know cache products claim
this doesn't happen, but it has, and often.

2. The website owner loses information on how many visitors are coming
to the site.

3. The website owner loses the demographics on where visitors are coming
from, and especially the number of unique visitors. (It's not helpful to
know that one cache engine visited, if that cache engine equated to
10,000 visits in an hour).

4. Banner advertising may or may not display properly when caching is
involved, thereby costing the website money.

5. There's NOTHING in it for the website owner, other than the
possibility that SOME pages might display faster for SOME users.

If folks running networks really think website designers and owners
should care about caching, then there needs to be some sort of benefit
(perhaps paid in dollars) to those affected. Otherwise, there's little
reason for them to care.

-- 
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Daniel Senie                                        dts () senie com
Amaranth Networks Inc.                    http://www.amaranth.com