Patent ID: 7565494

Claim:
A method for use in a computer system comprising a core, at least one cache and at least one edge device, the core comprising at least one object addressable storage system that stores a plurality of content units thereon and provides an object addressable interface that enables content units to be accessed via object identifiers, the at least one edge device being configured to access at least some of the plurality of content units, the at least one cache being disposed logically between the core and the at least one edge device and configured to temporarily store a subset of the plurality of content units, the method comprising an act of: (A) configuring the computer system to have a prefetch policy that, during a prefetch operation, selects from among the plurality of content units at least one selected content unit to be prefetched to the at least one cache, the prefetch policy evaluating at least some of the plurality of content units as candidates for prefetching based upon at least one prefetch criterion, the prefetch policy further imposing a limit on at least one prefetch operation, the limit being selected from the group consisting of: a total number of content units to be prefetched during the at least one prefetch operation; a time range during which the at least some of the plurality of content units were stored to the computer system to qualify them as candidates for being prefetched during the at least one prefetch operation; and a total volume of content included in the prefetched content units during the at least one prefetch operation.