THE UK NATIONAL WEB CACHE - THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

Two years after its introduction at the First International World-Wide Web Conference(4) at CERN, Geneva, the use of caching technology to i mprove the efficiency of network utilisation has become a hot topic. W ith relatively poor international connectivity, if was through necessi ty that UK academia was one of the first communities to make widesprea d use of this technology on a large scale. The implementation of a nat ional strategy proposed by HENSA Unix in June 1995 has led an experime ntal project to become what is probably the most mature caching facili ty in the world today. In this paper we present a brief history of the project, a discussion of the evolution of the hardware, software and networking systems involved, and take a look to the future of the proj ect within the framework of the UK's networking strategy. It is hoped that some of our experiences may be of use to other large bodies of us ers who are tired of waiting for their Web pages to arrive.