Active Query Caching for Database Web Servers

Abstract. A substantial portion of web trac consists of queries to database web servers. Unfortunately, a common technique to improve web scalability, proxy caching, is ineective for database web servers because existing web proxy servers cannot cache queries. To address this problem, we modify a recently proposed enhanced proxy server, called an active proxy, to enable Active Query Caching. Our approach works by having the server send the proxy a query applet, which can process simple queries at the proxy. This enables the proxy server to share the database server workload as well as to reduce the network trac. We show both opportunities and limitations of this approach through a performance study. Keywords:Active query caching, proxy caching, database web servers, query containment.