Performance evaluation of the random replacement policy for networks of caches
Résumé
The overall performance of content distribution networks as well as recently proposed
information-centric networks rely on both memory and bandwidth capacities. The hit ratio
is the key performance indicator which captures the bandwidth/memory tradeoff for a
given global performance.
This paper focuses on the estimation of the hit ratio in a network of caches that
employ the Random replacement policy (RND). Assuming that requests are independent
and identically distributed, general expressions of miss probabilities for a single RND cache
are provided as well as exact results for specific popularity distributions (such results also
hold for the FIFO replacement policy). Moreover, for any Zipf popularity distribution with
exponent α > 1, we obtain asymptotic equivalents for the miss probability in the case of
large cache size.
We extend the analysis to networks of RND caches, when the topology is either a
line or a homogeneous tree. In that case, approximations for miss probabilities across the
network are derived by neglecting time correlations between miss events at any node;
the obtained results are compared to the same network using the Least-Recently-Used
discipline, already addressed in the literature. We further analyze the case of a mixed
tandem cache network where the two nodes employ either Random or Least-Recently-
Used policies. In all scenarios, asymptotic formulas and approximations are extensively
compared to simulation results and shown to be very accurate. Finally, our results enable
us to propose recommendations for cache replacement disciplines in a network dedicated
to content distribution.