A group of Internet companies are promoting a new
protocol they say will help Internet software more efficiently use caching
to save bandwidth and minimize network strain.
Web caching software company Inktomi
Corp. is being joined by Microsoft
Corp., Real Networks Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
The Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol has already been integrated into the
beta of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5.0 and will be included in future
versions of Real’s G2 streaming media player.
Network caching is often deployed by corporations and Internet providers
to speed access to data by temporarily storing copies of
frequently-requested pages. The new protocol is designed to automatically
locate caches on the network with no configuration changes required.
A draft of the standard will also be sent to the Internet Engineering Task
Force.
Protocol enabled software will automatically connect users with caching
servers in their region, will periodically query nearby servers and
automatically connect to them. That ensures people who frequently travel
with their computers will connect to the nearest servers, regardless of
the region they’re in.
