Patent ID: 7565493

Claim:
A method for use in a computer system comprising a core 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 method comprising acts of: (A) configuring at least one cache to be disposed logically between the core and the at least one edge device and to temporarily store a subset of the plurality of content units; and (B) configuring the at least one cache to have a replacement policy that, when at least one of the subset of the plurality of content units is to be replaced in the at least one cache, selects from among the subset of the plurality of content units at least one selected content unit to be replaced by evaluating at least some of the subset of the plurality of content units as candidates for replacement based upon at least one replacement criterion that is selected from the group consisting of; an identity of a source that wrote an evaluated content unit to the computer system; when the replacement is performed subsequent to a request to access at least one of the plurality of content units stored on the core, an identity of a requestor that issued the request; a size of an evaluated content unit; a content type of an evaluated content unit; and when metadata was written to the computer system along with an evaluated content unit, the substance of the metadata.