Issues In File Cache Management for Mobile Computing

The emerging demand for mobile computing has created a need for improved file system support for mobile clients. Current file systems with support for mobility provide availability through file replicas cached at the client. These systems manage client file caches in the same manner as file caches in traditional LAN-based distributed systems. However, mobile clients may experience a wide range of network connections which vary greatly in terms of bandwidth, error rates, and expense of use, and these diverse environments add to the complexity of the cache management task. The impact of mobility on cache management has yet to be thoroughly investigated. This paper examines some of the issues which arise when file caching is performed at mobile clients, and examines the potential of various cache design decisions and cache management techniques to address these issues. Among the issues considered are caching unit, replacement policy, write backs, prefetching, hoarding, and adaptivity. Par..