Patent ID: 8688915

Claim:
A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to: for each member in a plurality of members in a lower level cache, initialize an associated reference counter to an initial value based on an operation type that caused data to be allocated to a member location of the member; for each access to the member in the lower level cache, increment the associated reference counter; responsive to a new allocation of data to the lower level cache, determine whether the new allocation of data to the lower level cache requires victimization of another member already in the lower level cache; responsive to the new allocation of data requiring the victimization of another member in the lower level cache, identify a member of the lower level cache that has a lowest reference count value in its associated reference counter; and evict the member with the lowest reference count value in its associated reference counter.