Patent ID: 7073027

Claim:
A method of controlling a cache of distributed data, comprising: dynamically determining whether and/or where to cache the distributed data based on characteristics of the data, characteristics of the source of the data and characteristics of the cache so as to provide an indication of whether to cache the data; and selectively caching the data based on the indication, wherein dynamically determining whether and/or where to cache the distributed data, comprises: determining a predicted maximum number of cache accesses; determining a predicted maximum time consumed by processing cache hits corresponding to a cache entry corresponding to the distributed data; determining a time (r) to replicate the distributed data; determining time (c) to generate the distributed data; and setting the indication to indicate caching the distributed data if the sum of the time to generate the distributed data, the time to replicate the distributed data and the predicted maximum time consumed by processing cache hits is less than the product of the predicted maximum number of cache accesses and the time to generate the distributed data.