Patent ID: 7747662

Claim:
A method for providing service aware network caching comprising: storing a service level definition within a network caching device, wherein the service level definition includes a rule defining a service level into which network traffic is categorized based on a characteristic of the network traffic; receiving at the network caching device, a first request from a client for data stored within a storage subsystem to which access is provided by a storage server system connected to the network caching device, wherein the network caching device is functionally coupled between the client and the storage server system; determining, in the network caching device, a service priority selected from a hierarchy of available service priorities for the first request based on the service level definition; servicing, in the network caching device, the first request based on the service priority, a detected network congestion between the client and the storage server system, and a detected cache hit of the data requested by the first request, wherein the servicing further includes, if the detected network congestion is above a first threshold and the service priority is below a second threshold, then transmitting an error message to the client and ignoring the first request, and if the service priority is above a third threshold, servicing the first request without issuing the first request to the storage server system if a cache hit has occurred and forwarding the first request to the server for servicing if a cache miss has occurred.