Proxy Cache Test

Web site caching is an efficient use of resources and another benefit of the Microsoft proxy server. Since you can use the Microsoft proxy server as a common connection point to the Internet, you can also use it to cache frequently accessed resources. The proxy server allocates a portion of the server’s hard disk space to store frequently accessed objects. Internet requests are more efficiently responded to through the use of fresh-cached data, which in the long run, helps in minimizing internet response times. Caching can either be passive or active. Passive caching just stores objects as they are requested, so the cache is updated only when users request information. Active caching directs the server to refresh objects in the cache automatically.

You can selectively control the proxy server caching so that you can limit the size of cached objects, change the expiration limits (control the freshness of objects), and determine whether the server always caches, or always excludes from cache, certain content.

This test reports the performance statistics pertaining to this caching activity of the Microsoft Proxy server. 

Target of the test : A Microsoft Proxy server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every web proxy server cache that is being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameters	Description
Test period	This indicates how often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	Refers to the port used by the Microsoft Proxy server.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Active refreshes	The rate at which data is retrieved from the Internet to refresh popular URLs in the URL cache.	Kb/sec	A low value indicates low refresh rate and a possible network problem.
Active URL refreshes	The rate at which the URLs in the URL cache are refreshed from the internet	URSs/sec	A low or 0(zero) indicates the non-availability of URLs or DNS servers from the internet.
Cache size	The total number of bytes currently available in the URL Cache	Kb	A high value indicates possible high usage of virtual memory on web proxy cache.
URL commits	The rate at which the URLs are committed  to the URLs cache	URLs/sec	The low value or 0 (zero) indicates low URL commits, low network resource availability.
URLs retrieved	The rate at which the URLs are retrieved from the URL cache.	URLs/sec	A low value indicates the low availability of the URLs from the proxy cache.
URLs in cache	The current number of URLs in the URL cache	Number	A high value indicates possible low availability of virtual memory.