An analytical study of cache invalidation algorithms in mobile environments

Caching is commonly used to improve the performance of mobile computers. Due to the limitations of wireless networks (e.g. low bandwidth, intermittent connectivity), ensuring the consistency of cached data becomes a difficult issue. Existing research have shown that broadcast-based cache invalidation techniques can effectively maintain cache consistency for mobile applications. However, most existing performance analysis of cache invalidation algorithms were carried out through simulation. Therefore, an analytical study is important to provide a deeper understanding of broadcast-based invalidation techniques. In this paper, we present detailed analytical models of the major existing cache invalidation schemes. The models provide a basis to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the different schemes and facilitate further investigation into cache invalidation for mobile environments. Extensive simulation has also been performed, and verifies the accuracy of the models developed.