SAP Web Dispatcher as a Web Cache

You can configure the Web dispatcher in such a way that the contents (static and dynamic) are stored in the cache, and the next request to this page can be satisfied quickly from the cache.

The SAP Web dispatcher normally forwards incoming requests to an Internet Communication Manager (ICM), which is responsible for Web requests in SAP NetWeaver AS. Caching has been available in the ICM for some time now.

The features are the same as in the ICM Server Cache, with the exception of invalidation of cache objects. The caching semantics, however, are not the same.

Unlike the ICM, the Web dispatcher does not use the proprietary SAP cache protocol - sap-cache-control - instead it uses the standard HTTP header field cache-control. Though, of its numerous supplementary RFC2616 directives, only max-age- the relative expiry time (in seconds) - is supported to date.

(The SAP cache protocol cannot be used in the Web dispatcher because it is not able to invalidate contents, unlike the ICM with its direct link to the work process in the application server (memory pipes). As with other Web caches too, the Web dispatcher therefore relies on passive invalidation using the expiry date ( max-age)).

The advantage of caching in the Web dispatcher over caching in the ICM is that the cache is located at the initial access point where all the requests arrive, and therefore all backend servers activated later and their network connections are offloaded.

An application wanting to use the cache in the Web dispatcher must therefore use the standard HTTP header field. This is recommended for static pages, images, and other large objects.