Efficient Web services response caching by selecting optimal data representation

Abstract

This paper discusses the design for an efficient response cache mechanism appropriate for the Web services architecture. The important feature of Web services is its interoperability between heterogeneous platforms. This interoperability is based on widely accepted standards such as XML, SOAP, and WSDL. We describe a response cache mechanism for Web services client middleware without any extensions to these standards so that the client can participate transparently in the existing Web services community. We propose three optimization methods to improve the performance of our response cache. The first optimization is caching the post-parsing representation instead of the XML message itself. The second is caching application objects. For this optimization, we show some copying processes that are dependent on the type of cached objects. The third optimization is for read-only objects. These methods reduce the overhead of XML processing or object copying. We have implemented a prototype of a response cache on Apache-Axis, and evaluated these optimization methods through experiments for Google Web services. Finally, based on the experimental results, we discuss the optimal configuration of these methods based on data types.

An Aspect-Oriented Approach to Consistency-Preserving Caching and Compression of Web Service Response Messages

“…Research on remote object caching for distributed systems [8] has caught substantial attention, including efforts that target CORBA [9], SOAP objects [10], and Java RMI [11]. An efficient response cache mechanism appropriate for the Web Services architecture is proposed by Takase et al [12]. This mechanism reduces the overhead of XML processing and application object copying by optimized data representation.…”

High Performance Approach for Server Side SOAP Processing

“…Communication overhead does not affect the overall service throughput anymore with effective client-side cache. Takase and Tatsubori (2004) present an efficient response cache by selecting optimal data representation. Three optimization methods have been proposed to improve the performance, which reduce the overhead of XML processing or object copying.…”

Content Delivery Networks: State of the Art, Insights, and Imperatives

“…Mirror Image has also developed an Application Delivery Network (ADN) that hosts both .NET and J2EE applications at its edge servers. Several studies [29,60] have shown that the performance of Web services is relatively poor because of the requirements for processing and special hosting capability. Some solutions can be found in literature, which can be used to address the problem of effective replication of Web services to the CDN edge servers.…”

“…Such a solution can be followed by a CDN to acquire (through trading) necessary capacity to meet the demand for Web service caching. Takase et al [60] present caching using XML messages, improvements by caching event sequences of the XML parser. They also propose caching of application objects using Java serialization, reflection copy, and clone copy.…”