FLeeC: a Fast Lock-Free Application Cache

TL;DR

FLeeC is a lock-free application cache system based on Memcached that significantly improves performance through redesigned data structures and non-blocking algorithms, enabling high concurrency in shared-memory environments.

Contribution

This paper introduces FLeeC, a novel lock-free cache system with new algorithms for eviction and lookups, enhancing performance over traditional Memcached.

Findings

Up to 6x performance improvement

Supports concurrent reads and writes in high contention

Compatible as a plug-in replacement for Memcached

Abstract

When compared to blocking concurrency, non-blocking concurrency can provide higher performance in parallel shared-memory contexts, especially in high contention scenarios. This paper proposes FLeeC, an application-level cache system based on Memcached, which leverages re-designed data structures and non-blocking (or lock-free) concurrency to improve performance by allowing any number of concurrent writes and reads to its main data structures, even in high-contention scenarios. We discuss and evaluate its new algorithms, which allow a lock-free eviction policy and lock-free fast lookups. FLeeC can be used as a plug-in replacement for the original Memcached, and its new algorithms and concurrency control strategies result in considerable performance improvements (up to 6x).