Keep-Alive Caching for the Hawkes process

Abstract: We study the design of caching policies in applications such as serverless computing where there is not a fixed size cache to be filled, but rather there is a cost associated with the time an item stays in the cache. We present a model for such caching policies which captures the trade-off between this cost and the cost of cache misses. We characterize optimal caching policies in general and apply this characterization by deriving a closed form for Hawkes processes. Since optimal policies for Hawkes processes depend on the history of arrivals, we also develop history-independent policies which achieve near-optimal average performance. We evaluate the performances of the optimal policy and approximate polices using simulations and a data trace of Azure Functions, Microsoft's FaaS (Function as a Service) platform for serverless computing.