One Time Cache: You Only Get One Chance To Make a First Impression

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ONE TIME CACHE YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A
FIRST IMPRESSION
BY SHAILESH SHUKLA
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Today Instart Logic is pleased to announce a new
suite of predictive optimization features that
include User Prioritization and One Time Cache.
With a combination of machine based learning and
application knowledge we can help organizations
predict which pages to serve from cache and which
users to allow access to the site improving the
overall user experience, helping organizations
acquire new customers, protect their brand and
increase revenues. When acquiring new customers,
organizations are faced with having to make
difficult decisions between providing the fastest
experience possible and a dynamic browsing
experience, as performance is only one aspect of
the user experience. News sites want to provide
the latest news, not information that is hours
old e-commerce sites want to provide information
on new or hot products which may change on an
hourly, daily or weekly basis but being able to
provide dynamic content can take a toll on
performance. We have all seen countless studies
showing that improving performance can reduce
bounce rates and increase conversions, but is
that more important or less important than
providing dynamic content. We say you no longer
need to choose, you can have your cake and eat it
too. There have been many optimizations
introduced over the years to improve critical web
performance metrics such as image sprites,
content in-lining and concatenation these
techniques only apply to static content such as
images, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets.
HTML which is the first item delivered to a
browser has mostly been ignored and in some cases
it has been negatively impacted when techniques
like content in-lining are used. Maybe the cold
shoulder is because HTML hasnt grown in size
over the years as images, JS and CSS have or
maybe its because much of HTML is dynamic in
nature and the overhead required to optimize HTML
that is unique for each user isnt worth the
effort or maybe its because many HTML pages are
not considered cacheable.
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The problem with not optimizing HTML is that the
browser is sitting idle while the dynamic content
is generated by the back end servers. The first
step in any online experience is the most
impressionable so there is an increasing need to
put your best foot forward, and optimize the
first resource a client receives the HTML. When
the abandonment rate at the first step of the
checkout is the 1 drop-off point, its an
important user experience to tunnel in on. When
done right, conversions can increase anywhere
from 2-3 all the way up to 5 according to KISS
Metrics. While 2-5 increase may not seem like a
lot increasing conversions by 2-5 can mean
millions of dollars in additional revenue for
some retailers. With HTML Streaming, Instart
Logic has been able to optimize delivery of
dynamic HTML content by streaming the non-unique
content to the browser while the origin server
generates the dynamic content. We now take this a
step further with the introduction of One Time
Cache which allows for full page caching of
Dynamic HTML. This innovative technology includes
a predictive capability to learn and predict the
need for future requests in advance of a user
issuing a request. Most websites these days are
dynamic and highly personalized, which makes
caching pages a challenge. I am guessing that my
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Amazon home pages
look very different than yours does. For example,
my Amazon home page right now is telling me that
I have 1 item in my shopping cart and is
suggesting a variety of books and items based on
my shopping history but if I log out and delete
my cookies I get a very different version.
Instead of personalized items based on my
shopping history there is a section on what other
customers are looking at right now. 
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This section is dynamic and is constantly showing
different items, here is that same section a few
minutes later.
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Caching my personalized version of the home page
doesnt make sense as that is information
specific to me. Caching a page that is dynamic
and is constantly displaying different content
also doesnt make sense, until today. One Time
Cache makes it possible to deliver dynamic web
pages from cache for a subset of customers.
HOW IT WORKS
Previously the request response chain for dynamic
HTML or non-cacheable content, was sequential a
user requests HTML from the edge, the edge
service forwards request to origin servers,
origin servers generate a response, which is sent
to the edge service, and finally the edge service
forwards a response to end user. As content flows
through our service we are examining not only the
content but also identifying various access
patterns. By examining request and response
patterns One Time Cache is able to predict access
patterns and pipeline requests from the edge in
parallel with client requests to supplement
traditional cache timeouts and TTLs. For example,
if the service detects that during peak business
hours the home page has 10 requests per second,
then during this time period it can request a
page seemingly in parallel with the client
request, ensuring that there are fresh versions
of the page available on the service to be
delivered as soon as the client request is
received. The parallel requests enable a greater
number of requests to be served from our
distributed service, reducing the amount of time
a browser sits idle while the origin servers
generate the appropriate HTML. 
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If a page is not eligible for One Time Cache as
the access patterns it can still be optimized via
our HTML streaming functionality. The great thing
is that our system will learn and figure this all
our automatically. One Time Cache will have the
biggest impact on time to first byte and start
render times as the delays typically encountered
to generate the HTML are eliminated. A customer
recently implemented Instart Logic performance
optimizations, including One Time Cache and saw
impressive improvement across key performance
indicators on both desktop and mobile devices.
Aggregate performance improvement for time to
first byte (TTFB) metrics were 200. Please note
performance will vary on an application by
application basis as well as which optimization
features have been enabled.  
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MOVING BEYOND DYNAMIC HTML TO DYNAMIC API REQUESTS
In addition to being able to store dynamic HTML,
One Time Cache also applies to dynamic API
traffic where the service accelerates new single
page apps and even native applications that make
REST API calls. One Time Cache predicts the need
for certain API responses, pre-fetches them and
stores them for future user requests, ensuring
each user gets a unique response from the
edge. To see what One Time Cache can do for your
website contact your account manager today.
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