“Advantages Of Advanced Page Caching “
The internet contains a vast system of distributed information in the form of shared data objects. The size of the internet has been growing rapidly, leading to network congestion, a factor that affects how fast one can access or retrieve information/data from the web. Such congestion has put a heavy load on the internet’s communications channels, one of the reasons users have to invest in the fastest internet connection. This is where advanced page caching comes in.
Understanding Page Caching
Page caching is a method used to help improve a page’s loading time by creating static HTML versions of the page for easy access. This function makes the page almost instantly accessible to the user. It is, however, worth noting that, one needs/has to have accessed the page before for the static version to be available the next time he/she tries to access it. In other words, page caching eliminates the time-consuming queries to a database, thus faster page loading speeds.
Web developers can employ various page caching methods and techniques for improved page loading speeds. The most commonly used methods include proxy caching, reverse proxy caching, and transparent caching, among others.
Advantages of Advanced Page Caching
Pre-fetched versions of web pages can be cached on servers, proxies, and clients. Here are some of the reasons why this is important.
1. Reduces bandwidth consumption:
Page caching reduces the load on the central remote server system (hosts) hence reducing network congestion on that particular website or page. This works in favor of both the provider and the person trying to access the information/page. For instance, the decreased network traffic reduced network congestion without preventing new queries to the site. In addition to this, clients will use/require less bandwidth to access the same page.
2. It reduces access latency:
The prefetched data can be accessed/fetched from a nearby server or proxy cache. This reduces the time taken to make the query and display results on the user’s computer or device. Transmission delay is therefore minimized hence improved page load speeds. In addition to this, page caching reduces network congestion on the page’s servers. This makes it even easier for un-cached documents or data to be retrieved much faster, thanks to reduced congestion. The workload on the data server is therefore significantly reduced.
3. Reduced workload on the remote server:
This method of caching helps spread data widely among proxy caches across the WAN. For this reason, loan on the remote server is greatly reduced hence making it easier to retrieve new information from it. As indicated earlier, this reduces load times and bandwidth consumption significantly.
4. Enhanced Web service:
While most web hosts strive to ensure a user’s webpage is accessible and online all through, downtimes are inevitable. Even a few seconds of downtime can be costly for most websites. Page caching however helps create a buffer during downtimes by making parts, if not all, of the page accessible via the prefetch data. This gives the web host time to resolve the issue on time.
The World Wide Web is already congested with various types of data. Searching for a piece of a document here is almost like searching for sugar grain in the sand. That said, page caching makes it possible to find such information easily and fast, hence vital in web development.