What is a Transparent Proxy Cache?

1. A transparent proxy cache is deployed by network service providers, enterprises and campuses to achieve transit/WAN bandwidth savings. 
2. A transparent proxy cache is typically deployed at the edge or network core
3. A transparent proxy cache sits in-between the users and the content providers, to cache and deliver content from a location closer to the user.
4. A transparent proxy cache "acts" like the origin server to the user and "acts" like a user to the server (i.e., a transparent proxy cache spoofs the IP address of the user and the origin server). Thus, both the user and the origin server do not know about the presence of a cache, in-between.
5. A transparent proxy cache transparently intercepts request to web objects, fetches objects from origin servers, caches and then delivers to the user. For all the subsequent requests to the same object, the content is delivered from the cache. Thus bandwidth savings is achieved by network service providers, enterprises and campuses. By serving repeat requests to a content from the edge cache, service providers can improve user's download speeds and online experience
6. A transparent proxy cache helps a service provider to achieve transit/WAN bandwidth savings and to improve the user's online experience (faster downloads)
7. A transparent proxy cache avoids the need for the user to modify his/her browser setting to point to the cache
8. A transparent proxy cache can be deployed both in "inline" and "offline" modes. In case of "inline" mode, all web traffic hits the transparent proxy cache. In case of "offline" mode, only "select" web traffic is redirected to the transparent proxy cache
9. A transparent proxy cache typically, doesn't modify the content delivered from the origin server to the user
10. A transparent proxy cache ensures that always the content served to the user is "fresh" and not "stale.