CRISP's simple and obvious design yields a cooperative Web cache that is easy to manage, reconfigure and expand incrementally. A CRISP cache can be expanded simply by registering more proxies with the mapping service. Clients can be redistributed across CRISP proxy servers to balance load without losing their ability to access any portion of the cache. This scalability and ease of configuration increases the likelihood that caches will be widely deployed and used effectively.
The central map can simplify approaches to important issues raised by large-scale caching in the Internet. A CRISP mapping service layer has complete knowledge of the cache contents, and the power to redirect requests to any participating proxy. If given the power to order transfers or evictions of cached objects, the mapping service could coordinate global replacement strategies, e.g., global LRU, which would simplify load balancing. As another example, scalable cache consistency could be implemented by using the mapping service as a single point of entry for invalidation directives issued from a modified object's home Web site.