Experiences in deploying in-network data caches

¹ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ; 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720
² Energy Sciences Network ; 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720

^* e-mail: asim@lbl.gov
^** e-mail: kissel@es.net
^*** e-mail: dhazen@es.net
^**** e-mail: chin@es.net

Published online: 6 May 2024

Abstract

Data caches of various forms have been widely deployed in the context of commercial and research and education networks, but their common positioning at the Edge limits their utility from a network operator perspective. When deployed outside the network core, providers lack visibility to make decisions or apply traffic engineering based on data access patterns and caching node location. As an alternative, in-network caching provides a different type of content delivery network for scientific data infrastructure, supporting on-demand temporary caching service. We will describe the status of in-network caching nodes deployed within ESnet in support of the US CMS data federation. We will describe the container and networking architecture used to deploy data caches within ESnet, and update on the evolving tooling around service management lifecycle. An analysis of cache usage will also be provided along with an outlook for expanding the in-network cache footprint.