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Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization Fundamentals

Author Ted Grevers Jr. , Joel Christner
Release Date: 2007/07/01
ISBN: 9781587053160
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Book Description

IT organizations face pressure to increase productivity, improve application performance, support global collaboration, improve data protection, and minimize costs. In today’s WAN-centered environments, traditional LAN-oriented infrastructure approaches are insufficient to meet these goals. Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization Fundamentals introduces a better solution: integrating today’s new generation of accelerator solutions to efficiently and effectively scale networks beyond traditional capabilities while improving performance and minimizing costs through consolidation.

Ted Grevers and Joel Christner begin by reviewing the challenges network professionals face in delivering applications to globally distributed workforces. You learn how accelerators are transforming application business models, enabling IT departments to centralize and consolidate resources while also delivering consistently superior performance.

Grevers and Christner show how to identify network consumers, prioritize traffic, and guarantee appropriate throughput and response times to business-critical applications. You learn how to use quality of service techniques such as packet classification and marking and traffic policing, queuing, scheduling, and shaping.

Next, you compare options for integrating accelerators and optimization services into your network and for optimizing content delivery. The authors show how to address application protocol-related performance problems that cannot be resolved through compression or flow optimization alone. In the final chapter, the authors walk you through several real-world scenarios for utilizing accelerator technology.

Ted Grevers, Jr., is the solution manager for the Cisco® Video IPTV Systems Test and Architecture (C-VISTA) team. He has extensive experience in the content delivery network (CDN) market, focusing on enterprise and service provider content delivery and application optimization needs.

Joel Christner, CCIE® No. 15311, is the manager of technical marketing for the Cisco Application Delivery Business Unit (ADBU). He has extensive experience with application protocols, acceleration technologies, LAN/WAN infrastructure, and storage networking. Grevers and Christner are key contributors to the design and architecture of Cisco application delivery and application acceleration solutions.

  • Provide high-performance access to remote data, content, video, rich media, and applications

  • Understand how accelerators can improve network performance and minimize bandwidth consumption

  • Use NetFlow to baseline application requirements and network utilization

  • Ensure network resources are allocated based on business priorities

  • Identify performance barriers arising from networks, protocols, operating systems, hardware, file systems, and applications

  • Employ application-specific acceleration components to mitigate the negative impact of latency and bandwidth consumption

  • Integrate content delivery networks (CDN) to centrally manage the acquisition, security, and distribution of content to remote locations

  • Leverage WAN optimization technologies to improve application throughput, mitigate the impact of latency and loss, and minimize bandwidth consumption

  • Optimize the performance of WANs and business-critical WAN applications

    • This book is part of the Cisco Press® Fundamentals Series. Books in this series introduce networking professionals to new networking technologies, covering network topologies, sample deployment concepts, protocols, and management techniques.

    Category: Cisco Press/Networking

    Covers: Network Optimization

    Table of Contents

    1. Copyright
      1. Dedications
    2. About the Authors
    3. About the Technical Reviewers
    4. Acknowledgments
    5. Icons Used in This Book
      1. Command Syntax Conventions
    6. Foreword
    7. Introduction
      1. Goals and Methods
      2. Who Should Read This Book?
      3. How This Book Is Organized
    8. 1. Strategic Information Technology Initiatives
      1. Managing Applications
        1. Testing New Applications
        2. Reducing Application Latency
      2. Managing Distributed Servers
        1. Protecting Data on Distributed Servers
        2. Providing Timely Remote Service and Support
        3. Using Centralized Management Methods
      3. Facing the Unavoidable WAN
      4. Changing the Application Business Model
      5. Consolidating and Protecting Servers in the New IT Operational Model
        1. Server Consolidation
        2. Compliance, Data Protection, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery
          1. Data Protection and Compliance
          2. Business Continuance and Disaster Recovery
      6. Summary
    9. 2. Barriers to Application Performance
      1. Networks and Application Performance
        1. Bandwidth
        2. Latency
          1. Understanding Why TCP Adds Latency
          2. ACK Message
          3. Checksum Verification
          4. Data Reordering
          5. Flow Control
          6. Understanding How Other Protocols Add Latency
          7. Understanding the Physics Aspect of Latency
          8. Serialization Delays
          9. Processing Delays
          10. Forwarding Delays
          11. Understanding Application Protocol Latency
        3. Throughput
      2. Application and Protocol Barriers to Application Performance
        1. Application Protocols
          1. CIFS
          2. HTTP
          3. FTP
          4. NFS
          5. MAPI and Remote Procedure Calls
        2. Network Stability
          1. Identifying Network Components
          2. Identifying Non-Network Components
          3. Understanding the Health of Network Devices
          4. SNMP
          5. Syslog
          6. Obtaining Vendor-Specific Performance Validation Test Results
          7. Establishing a Redundancy Plan
          8. Stabilizing the Client and Server Network Connections
      3. Operating System Barriers to Application Performance
        1. Microsoft Corporation
          1. TCP Chimney Offload
          2. Receive-Side Scaling
          3. NetDMA
        2. Sun Microsystems
        3. Red Hat
        4. Hewlett-Packard
        5. IBM
      4. Hardware Barriers to Application Performance
        1. Central Processing Unit
          1. Cache Capacity
          2. Front Side Bus Speed
          3. Dual-Core Support
          4. Hyper-Threading
          5. Support for 32-Bit and 64-Bit Architectures
        2. Random Access Memory
        3. Disk Storage
          1. Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
          2. Fiber Channel
        4. File System Considerations
          1. Solaris
          2. Microsoft Windows Server 2003
          3. HP-UX
          4. Linux
        5. Network Interface Cards
      5. Summary
    10. 3. Aligning Network Resources with Business Priority
      1. Viewing Network Utilization
        1. NetFlow
          1. NetFlow-Enabled Device
          2. NetFlow Collector
        2. Network Based Application Recognition
      2. Employing Quality of Service
        1. Packet Classification
        2. Pre-Queuing Operators
          1. Packet Marking
          2. Integrated Services
          3. Differentiated Services
          4. Traffic Policing
        3. Queuing and Scheduling
          1. FIFO Queuing
          2. Priority Queuing
          3. Weighted Fair Queuing
          4. Traffic Shaping
        4. Post-Queuing Optimization
      3. Understanding Accelerator Control Features and Integration
        1. Overview of Accelerator Technology
          1. WAN Optimization
          2. TCP Optimization
          3. Data Suppression
          4. Compression
          5. Application Acceleration Functions
          6. Object Caching
          7. Read-Ahead
          8. Write-Behind
          9. Message Prediction
          10. Wide Area File Services
        2. Integrating Accelerators into the Network
          1. Physical Integration
          2. Logical Integration
          3. Web Cache Control Protocol v2
          4. Policy Based Routing
          5. Server Load Balancing
        3. Architecture of Accelerator Services
          1. Nontransparent Accelerators
          2. Transparent Accelerators
      4. Summary
    11. 4. Overcoming Application-Specific Barriers
      1. Understanding Application-Specific Acceleration
      2. Application-Specific Caching
        1. Advantages of Application-Specific Caching
        2. Cache Validation and Content Freshness
          1. CIFS
          2. HTTP
          3. HTTPS
          4. Secure Sockets Layer
          5. Transport Layer Security
        3. Streaming Media: RTSP, HTTP, and Flash
      3. Web-Based Database Applications
      4. Read-Ahead
      5. Message Prediction
      6. Pipelining and Multiplexing
      7. Summary
    12. 5. Content Delivery Networks
      1. Evolution of Content Delivery Networks
      2. Understanding CDN Solutions
      3. A Common Content Distribution Scenario
      4. Understanding CDN Components
      5. Managing a CDN
        1. Identifying Target Content
        2. Understanding Protocol Requirements
        3. Choosing Suitable Content Acquisition Methods
          1. Content Crawling
          2. Explicit URL Specification
        4. Managing Multiple Platforms Across Distributed Networks
        5. Managing Costs
        6. Usage Planning
      6. Sharing the WAN
      7. Using Desktop Management Suites with Content Delivery Networks
        1. Combining Solutions
        2. Combining Management Functions
        3. Establishing Storage Requirements
      8. Using Centralized Network Settings
        1. Centralized Streaming Control
        2. Centralized Administration of Authentication and Authorization
        3. Centralized Access Control List Administration
        4. Centralized SNMP Control
        5. Centralized Monitoring
          1. Enabling Transaction Logging
          2. Saving Bandwidth
        6. Centralized Edge Management
      9. Understanding Content-Serving Protocols
        1. CIFS
        2. HTTP
        3. HTTPS
        4. FTP
        5. RTSP
        6. TFTP
      10. Streaming Media Live or On Demand
        1. Live Streaming
        2. Video on Demand
      11. Authenticating Requests for Prepositioned Content
      12. Acquiring Content
        1. Cookie-Based Acquisition
        2. Origin Server Content Placement
        3. Content Size Considerations
        4. Department-Managed Portals
      13. Understanding CDN Distribution Models
        1. Direct Fetch
          1. Benefits of Direct Fetch
          2. Limitations of Direct Fetch
        2. Distributed Hierarchy
      14. Understanding Time-of-Day Distribution
        1. Know the Network
        2. Unicast Distribution
        3. Multicast Distribution
        4. Encrypted and In-the-Clear Distribution
      15. Understanding Software-Based Content Delivery Networks
        1. Native Protocol Playback of Streaming Media
        2. Streaming Media and Executive Demand
      16. Understanding Explicit and Transparent Proxy Modes
      17. Using CDN Calculation Tools
        1. General Content Storage
        2. Streaming Media Storage
        3. Calculating Content Delivery Times
      18. Summary
    13. 6. Overcoming Transport and Link Capacity Limitations
      1. Understanding Transport Protocol Limitations
      2. Understanding Transmission Control Protocol Fundamentals
        1. Connection-Oriented Service
        2. Guaranteed Delivery
        3. Bandwidth Discovery
          1. TCP Slow Start
          2. TCP Congestion Avoidance
      3. Overcoming Transport Protocol Limitations
        1. Of Mice and Elephants: Short-Lived Connections and Long Fat Networks
          1. Mice: Short-Lived Connections
          2. Elephants: High Bandwidth Delay Product Networks
          3. Window Scaling
          4. Scalable TCP Implementation
        2. Overcoming Packet Loss-Related Performance Challenges
        3. Advanced TCP Implementations
          1. High-Speed TCP
          2. Scalable TCP
          3. Binary Increase Congestion TCP
        4. Accelerator TCP Proxy Functionality
      4. Overcoming Link Capacity Limitations
        1. Accelerators and Compression
          1. Traditional Data Compression
          2. Data Suppression
        2. Accelerator Compression Architectures
          1. Per-Packet Compression
          2. Session-Based Compression
          3. Directionality
      5. Summary
    14. 7. Examining Accelerator Technology Scenarios
      1. Acme Data Corporation: Protecting Data and Promoting Global Collaboration
        1. Observed Challenges
        2. Accelerator Solution
          1. Integrating the Accelerators
          2. Features and Benefits
      2. C3 Technology LLC: Saving WAN Bandwidth and Replicating Data
        1. Observed Challenges
        2. Accelerator Solution
          1. Integrating the Accelerators
          2. Features and Benefits
      3. Command Grill Corporation: Improving HTTP Application Performance
        1. First Attempts to Improve Application Performance
        2. Accelerator Solution
          1. Integrating the Accelerators
          2. Features and Benefits
      4. Almost Write Inc.: Implementing Content Delivery Networking
        1. Observed Challenges
        2. Accelerator Solution
          1. Integrating the Accelerators
          2. Features and Benefits
      5. Summary
    15. A. Common Ports and Assigned Applications
    16. B. Ten Places for More Information
      1. 1: Cisco IOS Technologies
      2. 2: Cisco Product Documentation
      3. 3: NetQoS Network Performance Management Tools
      4. 4: BIC TCP
      5. 5: Low Bandwidth File System
      6. 6: Locating a Request for Comment
      7. 7: Microsoft TechNet
      8. 8: Hewlett-Packard Product Documentation
      9. 9: Red Hat Product Documentation
      10. 10: Registered TCP and UDP Port Numbers
    18.191.68.18