The FAQ outlines a method of reducing the effects of clobbering updates, by use of an embedded expiration value.
http://code.google.com/p/memcached/wiki/FAQ#How_to_prevent_clobbering_updates,_stampeding_requests "Then, when you get from the cache and examine the timeout and find it expired, immediately edit the embedded timeout to a time in the future and re-store the data as is." If a CAS operation is used here, wouldn't it prevent others from doing unnecessary work? If the CAS operation succeeds, then its the currently running tasks responsibility to refresh the data in the cache, if it fails with RES_DATA_EXISTS, then someone else is taking care of the update. Jared
