The current release of the News Cache allows to set up local newsgroups as defined in section 3.2. The administrator has to set up a local news server holding the newsgroups that should be provided locally. Then the News Cache has to be configured to contact the local news server for the locally spooled newsgroups. Figure 8.1 shows this configuration.
However, this setup costs more performance and more administrative work than necessary. A better solution could be to integrate the management of the local newsgroups into the News Cache. This has the advantages that the administrator needs not to set up and configure a local news server.
This extended functionality of the News Cache will be available in one of the News Cache's future releases.
Prefetching means that all new articles of some or all newsgroups available on the news server will be cached prior to a user request. This is useful for newsgroups being accessed frequently, because it reduces the response time for the first request. Additionally this may balance the network load if those frequently used newsgroups are cached when the network has fewer load.
For example, the computer languages department may want to download the comp.lang newsgroups at 6 am. This has the advantage that the news articles are immediately available when somebody logs in and starts reading a comp.lang newsgroup.
The News Cache may even provide the possibility to read news offline. To do this the newsgroups subscribed have to be cached when the News Cache is online. Afterwards, it may supply the cached news articles without the necessity of a network link to its news server.
For example, somebody attached with a modem to the Internet does not want to be connected permanently (especially in cases when the telephone line is billed for each minute like in Europe). Hence he might want to download all the newsgroups he wishes to read at once and read those newsgroups afterwards.
In the current version, this is possible with limited functionality. Whenever you are connected to your newsfeed, you may run the getnews utility provided with the News Cache system. This retrieves all the groups and articles you are subscribed to. However, this is rather user-unfriendly and will change in future releases.
