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Journal ArticleDOI

Fundamental Limits of Caching

11 Mar 2014-IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (IEEE)-Vol. 60, Iss: 5, pp 2856-2867
TL;DR: This paper proposes a novel coded caching scheme that exploits both local and global caching gains, leading to a multiplicative improvement in the peak rate compared with previously known schemes, and argues that the performance of the proposed scheme is within a constant factor of the information-theoretic optimum for all values of the problem parameters.
Abstract: Caching is a technique to reduce peak traffic rates by prefetching popular content into memories at the end users. Conventionally, these memories are used to deliver requested content in part from a locally cached copy rather than through the network. The gain offered by this approach, which we term local caching gain, depends on the local cache size (i.e., the memory available at each individual user). In this paper, we introduce and exploit a second, global, caching gain not utilized by conventional caching schemes. This gain depends on the aggregate global cache size (i.e., the cumulative memory available at all users), even though there is no cooperation among the users. To evaluate and isolate these two gains, we introduce an information-theoretic formulation of the caching problem focusing on its basic structure. For this setting, we propose a novel coded caching scheme that exploits both local and global caching gains, leading to a multiplicative improvement in the peak rate compared with previously known schemes. In particular, the improvement can be on the order of the number of users in the network. In addition, we argue that the performance of the proposed scheme is within a constant factor of the information-theoretic optimum for all values of the problem parameters.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper provides a taxonomy based on the D2D communicating spectrum and review the available literature extensively under the proposed taxonomy to provide new insights into the over-explored and under- Explored areas that lead to identify open research problems of D1D communications in cellular networks.
Abstract: Device-to-device (D2D) communications was initially proposed in cellular networks as a new paradigm for enhancing network performance. The emergence of new applications such as content distribution and location-aware advertisement introduced new user cases for D2D communications in cellular networks. The initial studies showed that D2D communications has advantages such as increased spectral efficiency and reduced communication delay. However, this communication mode introduces complications in terms of interference control overhead and protocols that are still open research problems. The feasibility of D2D communications in Long-Term Evolution Advanced is being studied by academia, industry, and standardization bodies. To date, there are more than 100 papers available on D2D communications in cellular networks, but there is no survey on this field. In this paper, we provide a taxonomy based on the D2D communicating spectrum and review the available literature extensively under the proposed taxonomy. Moreover, we provide new insights into the over-explored and under-explored areas that lead us to identify open research problems of D2D communications in cellular networks.

1,784 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper provides a survey-style introduction to dense small cell networks and considers many research directions, namely, user association, interference management, energy efficiency, spectrum sharing, resource management, scheduling, backhauling, propagation modeling, and the economics of UDN deployment.
Abstract: The exponential growth and availability of data in all forms is the main booster to the continuing evolution in the communications industry. The popularization of traffic-intensive applications including high definition video, 3-D visualization, augmented reality, wearable devices, and cloud computing defines a new era of mobile communications. The immense amount of traffic generated by today’s customers requires a paradigm shift in all aspects of mobile networks. Ultradense network (UDN) is one of the leading ideas in this racetrack. In UDNs, the access nodes and/or the number of communication links per unit area are densified. In this paper, we provide a survey-style introduction to dense small cell networks. Moreover, we summarize and compare some of the recent achievements and research findings. We discuss the modeling techniques and the performance metrics widely used to model problems in UDN. Also, we present the enabling technologies for network densification in order to understand the state-of-the-art. We consider many research directions in this survey, namely, user association, interference management, energy efficiency, spectrum sharing, resource management, scheduling, backhauling, propagation modeling, and the economics of UDN deployment. Finally, we discuss the challenges and open problems to the researchers in the field or newcomers who aim to conduct research in this interesting and active area of research.

828 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This survey makes an exhaustive review on the state-of-the-art research efforts on mobile edge networks, including definition, architecture, and advantages, and presents a comprehensive survey of issues on computing, caching, and communication techniques at the network edge.
Abstract: As the explosive growth of smart devices and the advent of many new applications, traffic volume has been growing exponentially. The traditional centralized network architecture cannot accommodate such user demands due to heavy burden on the backhaul links and long latency. Therefore, new architectures, which bring network functions and contents to the network edge, are proposed, i.e., mobile edge computing and caching. Mobile edge networks provide cloud computing and caching capabilities at the edge of cellular networks. In this survey, we make an exhaustive review on the state-of-the-art research efforts on mobile edge networks. We first give an overview of mobile edge networks, including definition, architecture, and advantages. Next, a comprehensive survey of issues on computing, caching, and communication techniques at the network edge is presented. The applications and use cases of mobile edge networks are discussed. Subsequently, the key enablers of mobile edge networks, such as cloud technology, SDN/NFV, and smart devices are discussed. Finally, open research challenges and future directions are presented as well.

782 citations


Cites background from "Fundamental Limits of Caching"

  • ...online caching, is a future direction of caching researches [154]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose an efficient caching scheme, in which the content placement is performed in a decentralized manner, and despite this lack of coordination, the proposed scheme is nevertheless able to create coded-multicasting opportunities and achieves a rate close to the optimal centralized scheme.
Abstract: Replicating or caching popular content in memories distributed across the network is a technique to reduce peak network loads. Conventionally, the main performance gain of this caching was thought to result from making part of the requested data available closer to end-users. Instead, we recently showed that a much more significant gain can be achieved by using caches to create coded-multicasting opportunities, even for users with different demands, through coding across data streams. These coded-multicasting opportunities are enabled by careful content overlap at the various caches in the network, created by a central coordinating server. In many scenarios, such a central coordinating server may not be available, raising the question if this multicasting gain can still be achieved in a more decentralized setting. In this paper, we propose an efficient caching scheme, in which the content placement is performed in a decentralized manner. In other words, no coordination is required for the content placement. Despite this lack of coordination, the proposed scheme is nevertheless able to create coded-multicasting opportunities and achieves a rate close to the optimal centralized scheme.

752 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide theoretical insights on how coded solutions can achieve significant gains compared with uncoded ones for matrix multiplication and data shuffling in large-scale distributed systems.
Abstract: Codes are widely used in many engineering applications to offer robustness against noise . In large-scale systems, there are several types of noise that can affect the performance of distributed machine learning algorithms—straggler nodes, system failures, or communication bottlenecks—but there has been little interaction cutting across codes, machine learning, and distributed systems. In this paper, we provide theoretical insights on how coded solutions can achieve significant gains compared with uncoded ones. We focus on two of the most basic building blocks of distributed learning algorithms: matrix multiplication and data shuffling . For matrix multiplication, we use codes to alleviate the effect of stragglers and show that if the number of homogeneous workers is $n$ , and the runtime of each subtask has an exponential tail, coded computation can speed up distributed matrix multiplication by a factor of $\log n$ . For data shuffling, we use codes to reduce communication bottlenecks, exploiting the excess in storage. We show that when a constant fraction $\alpha $ of the data matrix can be cached at each worker, and $n$ is the number of workers, coded shuffling reduces the communication cost by a factor of $\left({\alpha + \frac {1}{n}}\right)\gamma (n)$ compared with uncoded shuffling, where $\gamma (n)$ is the ratio of the cost of unicasting $n$ messages to $n$ users to multicasting a common message (of the same size) to $n$ users. For instance, $\gamma (n) \simeq n$ if multicasting a message to $n$ users is as cheap as unicasting a message to one user. We also provide experimental results, corroborating our theoretical gains of the coded algorithms.

686 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work reveals that it is in general not optimal to regard the information to be multicast as a "fluid" which can simply be routed or replicated, and by employing coding at the nodes, which the work refers to as network coding, bandwidth can in general be saved.
Abstract: We introduce a new class of problems called network information flow which is inspired by computer network applications. Consider a point-to-point communication network on which a number of information sources are to be multicast to certain sets of destinations. We assume that the information sources are mutually independent. The problem is to characterize the admissible coding rate region. This model subsumes all previously studied models along the same line. We study the problem with one information source, and we have obtained a simple characterization of the admissible coding rate region. Our result can be regarded as the max-flow min-cut theorem for network information flow. Contrary to one's intuition, our work reveals that it is in general not optimal to regard the information to be multicast as a "fluid" which can simply be routed or replicated. Rather, by employing coding at the nodes, which we refer to as network coding, bandwidth can in general be saved. This finding may have significant impact on future design of switching systems.

8,533 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article shows that move-to-front is within a constant factor of optimum among a wide class of list maintenance rules, and analyzes the amortized complexity of LRU, showing that its efficiency differs from that of the off-line paging rule by a factor that depends on the size of fast memory.
Abstract: In this article we study the amortized efficiency of the “move-to-front” and similar rules for dynamically maintaining a linear list. Under the assumption that accessing the ith element from the front of the list takes t(i) time, we show that move-to-front is within a constant factor of optimum among a wide class of list maintenance rules. Other natural heuristics, such as the transpose and frequency count rules, do not share this property. We generalize our results to show that move-to-front is within a constant factor of optimum as long as the access cost is a convex function. We also study paging, a setting in which the access cost is not convex. The paging rule corresponding to move-to-front is the “least recently used” (LRU) replacement rule. We analyze the amortized complexity of LRU, showing that its efficiency differs from that of the off-line paging rule (Belady's MIN algorithm) by a factor that depends on the size of fast memory. No on-line paging algorithm has better amortized performance.

2,378 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
14 Mar 2010
TL;DR: This paper develops light-weight cooperative cache management algorithms aimed at maximizing the traffic volume served from cache and minimizing the bandwidth cost, and establishes that the performance of the proposed algorithms is guaranteed to be within a constant factor from the globally optimal performance.
Abstract: The delivery of video content is expected to gain huge momentum, fueled by the popularity of user-generated clips, growth of VoD libraries, and wide-spread deployment of IPTV services with features such as CatchUp/PauseLive TV and NPVR capabilities. The `time-shifted' nature of these personalized applications defies the broadcast paradigm underlying conventional TV networks, and increases the overall bandwidth demands by orders of magnitude. Caching strategies provide an effective mechanism for mitigating these massive bandwidth requirements by replicating the most popular content closer to the network edge, rather than storing it in a central site. The reduction in the traffic load lessens the required transport capacity and capital expense, and alleviates performance bottlenecks. In the present paper, we develop light-weight cooperative cache management algorithms aimed at maximizing the traffic volume served from cache and minimizing the bandwidth cost. As a canonical scenario, we focus on a cluster of distributed caches, either connected directly or via a parent node, and formulate the content placement problem as a linear program in order to benchmark the globally optimal performance. Under certain symmetry assumptions, the optimal solution of the linear program is shown to have a rather simple structure. Besides interesting in its own right, the optimal structure offers valuable guidance for the design of low-complexity cache management and replacement algorithms. We establish that the performance of the proposed algorithms is guaranteed to be within a constant factor from the globally optimal performance, with far more benign worst-case ratios than in prior work, even in asymmetric scenarios. Numerical experiments for typical popularity distributions reveal that the actual performance is far better than the worst-case conditions indicate.

727 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A measure on graphs, the minrank, is identified, which exactly characterizes the minimum length of linear and certain types of nonlinear INDEX codes and for natural classes of side information graphs, including directed acyclic graphs, perfect graphs, odd holes, and odd anti-holes, minrank is the optimal length of arbitrary INDex codes.
Abstract: Motivated by a problem of transmitting supplemental data over broadcast channels (Birk and Kol, INFOCOM 1998), we study the following coding problem: a sender communicates with n receivers R1,..., Rn. He holds an input x ∈ {0,01l}n and wishes to broadcast a single message so that each receiver Ri can recover the bit xi. Each Ri has prior side information about x, induced by a directed graph Grain nodes; Ri knows the bits of a; in the positions {j | (i,j) is an edge of G}.G is known to the sender and to the receivers. We call encoding schemes that achieve this goal INDEXcodes for {0,1}n with side information graph G. In this paper we identify a measure on graphs, the minrank, which exactly characterizes the minimum length of linear and certain types of nonlinear INDEX codes. We show that for natural classes of side information graphs, including directed acyclic graphs, perfect graphs, odd holes, and odd anti-holes, minrank is the optimal length of arbitrary INDEX codes. For arbitrary INDEX codes and arbitrary graphs, we obtain a lower bound in terms of the size of the maximum acyclic induced subgraph. This bound holds even for randomized codes, but has been shown not to be tight.

632 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This perspective exposes the further research which is necessary in order to provide a truly satisfactory solution to the file assignment problem.
Abstract: The optimal distribution of files among storage nodes is a major problem m computer system optimization. Differing design goals, varying system assumptions, and contrasting solution techniques yield a disparity of optimal file assignments. This paper views the differing file assignment models in a uniform manner Relative advantages and weaknesses of the various models become immediately apparent. This perspective exposes the further research which is necessary m order to provide a truly satisfactory solution to the file assignment problem

538 citations