Research Article
Assessing the Impact of Web Caching on Resource Utilization in Low Capacity Networks
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_12, author={J. A. Okuthe}, title={Assessing the Impact of Web Caching on Resource Utilization in Low Capacity Networks}, proceedings={Towards new e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 15th International Conference, AFRICOMM 2023, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, November 23--25, 2023, Proceedings, Part I}, proceedings_a={AFRICOMM}, year={2025}, month={2}, keywords={Bandwidth Proxy Caching Encryption Traffic Volume}, doi={10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_12} }- J. A. Okuthe
Year: 2025
Assessing the Impact of Web Caching on Resource Utilization in Low Capacity Networks
AFRICOMM
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_12
Abstract
Caching web objects closer to hosts for reuse can improve the performance of services that rely on the Internet. However, in recent times a large portion of the Internet traffic delivery is through HTTPS where Transport Layer Security (TLS) provides end-to-end encryption ensuring data integrity, authenticity, privacy and confidentiality between the Web server and client. Encrypted traffic is not malleable to caching and reuse by the network, since each session is unique. Nonetheless, by deploying a cache system that operates over encrypted communication channels using an initial key exchange protocol and a hash function between the cache server and the clients, we implemented HTTPS Web caching configuration in an active community network environment. Results obtained from the study showed a 64.03% drop in the local loop bandwidth utilization and a reduction of the Web traffic component from 95.49% to 52.54%. In addition, there was a 44.1% decline in the local loop traffic volume. Although the LAN traffic volume is not a major area of concern due to the existence of a 1Gbps Ethernet capacity, the resulting 4.01% reduction in LAN traffic volume is a positive contribution from the study.
