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. Server side data transfer devices and client side data transfer devices can be provided in multiple-to-one, one-to-multiple, or multiple-to-multiple manners.