Patent ID: 8799396

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at a cache device a request from a client system for a content resource, the content resource including content and metadata regarding the content, said cache device comprising a local index of a shared cache storage system, the shared cache storage system being accessible by a plurality of cache devices, each of the plurality of cache devices maintaining a separate local index of the shared cache storage system; examining said local index of said shared cache storage system at said cache device to determine whether said content resource is available in said shared cache storage system; requesting said content resource from an original data source in response to a determination that said content resource is not available in said shared cache storage system; storing said content resource in said shared cache storage system; updating said local index of the single shared cache storage system at said cache device receiving the request to include the metadata of said content resource to reflect said content resource stored in said shared cache storage system; transmitting a message to at least one peer cache device when storing said content resource in said shared cache storage system, the cache device and the at least one peer cache device sharing a common storage resource in the shared cache storage system; and updating said local index at said at least one peer cache device, each peer cache device having a separate local index, in response to said message to reflect said content resource stored in said shared cache storage system.