Patent ID: 7747627

Claim:
A method comprising: maintaining a look-up table that maps filenames of files to file locations in a storage device or in a cache of a receiving computational device, the maintained look-up table includes mapping information to process a file request without specifying the requested file's location, wherein the requested file is located in the storage device or in the cache of the receiving computational device; categorizing at least a portion of files in the cache of the receiving computational device into categories, wherein a policy defines which of the categories of the files in the cache of the receiving computational device are categorized into, wherein the categories include at least a first category and a second category, wherein files in the first category are always deleted, and wherein files in the second category are conditionally deleted; receiving a request for accessing a file from a user, the received request comprising the filename of the file in the received request for accessing; determining a mapping for the filename of the file in the received request for accessing using the maintained look-up table, wherein the received request for accessing from the user does not specify location of the file; returning the file specified in the received request for accessing from the cache of the receiving computational device if the determined mapping indicates the file is present in the cache of the receiving computational device; and retrieving the file specified in the received request for accessing from the storage device if the determined mapping indicates the file specified in the received request for accessing is not present in the cache of the receiving computational device.