In a data transfer scheme using a caching technique and/or a compression technique which is capable of reducing the network load of a network connecting between data transfer devices, correspondences between data and their names are registered at the data transfer devices and the corresponding names are transferred, instead of transferring the data, for those data for which the correspondences are registered, so that it is possible to reduce the amount of transfer data among the data transfer devices. Even when the name corresponding to the data is not registered so that it is impossible to transfer the corresponding name instead of transferring the data, it is possible to reduce the amount of transfer data among the data transfer devices by transferring the compressed data in which this data is expressed in a compressed form by utilizing the name corresponding to the registered reference data.