thread moron, huh?
forsite.net
well, it pro'ly serves you right for spamming DS' beloved Gorilla board with: "Get your paws off me you damn dirty ape!"
something, frankly, i never had the brass monkey balls to pull off.
(yes! a subtle etymologic.com allusion)
enjoy,
-chris.
-----
Tech - Field Report
Caching In
Network Web caching can accelerate Web access without breaking the bank
By Emily Kay
11/22/1999
ComputerWorld
Page 68
Opting for Web caching software saved the Kentucky Department of Education $7.8 million, while speeding students' access to the Internet and blocking pornographic Web sites.
"It was a huge success beyond my expectations, with incredible response rates," says David Couch, commissioner of education technology for Kentucky's state government in Frankfort.
After examining other options, the state decided to spend just $200,000 to perform network caching and filtering using Microsoft Corp.'s Proxy Server, which stores Web content locally. One alternative was to spend about $8 million for a dedicated caching appliance.
On the Web, speed rules, as anyone knows if they've ever twiddled their thumbs waiting for a page to appear. Clearing bottlenecks and optimizing bandwidth usage to retain Internet customers and satisfy corporate users with the information they want is the name of the game. Network caching technology is proving to be the ticket onto the playing field.
Internet and internal intranet volume continues to skyrocket. International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham, Mass., estimates that the number of Web users will triple from 58.3 million in 1997 to more than 175 million in 2001. In addition, the number of Web pages -- growing by more than 1 million per day -- will reach 1.5 billion by next year, according to IDC.
As the quantity of Web users increases, their impatience for arriving quickly at their online destinations grows. At the same time, corporate network administrators are coping with the continuing degradation of network bandwidth, reliability and performance from increased Internet usage within their own organizations.
Keeping Pages Local
A network Web cache stores content and objects from Web pages locally rather than on remote Web servers. "By placing a cache of Web content on the network between the user and the originating Web sites, the distance that commonly accessed content has to travel over the Internet is reduced, and users experience quicker response and faster performance," says Michael Goulde, an analyst at Patricia Seybold Group in Boston.
Caching also improves performance for multiple users of frequently requested data. The first time a user clicks on a Web page, for example, the contents of that page are stored on the user's local network. The next user in the same organization can grab that page on the local network server, making for faster access and cutting down on traffic through wide-area network connections.
Appliances or Proxy Servers?
Caching products fall into two primary categories: caching appliances and software-based proxy servers. Caching appliances are dedicated hardware devices that are generally easier to manage and offer better performance. Proxy servers tend to be less expensive, and the hardware on which they run can be used for tasks other than caching (see Technology QuickStudy, page 67).
Vendors such as Microsoft, Novell Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp. sell software-based proxy servers running on general-purpose hardware platforms. Dedicated hardware appliances come from suppliers that include Cisco Systems Inc., CacheFlow Inc., Infolibria Inc. and Inktomi Corp. Network Appliance Inc. sells both types.
Content distribution and other more sophisticated offerings are available from vendors such as Akamai Technologies Inc., iBeam Broadcasting Corp. and Sandpiper Networks Inc. (see "Cache Crop," page 69).
In Kentucky, caching lets students and teachers access stored data in as little as 5 seconds, compared with the 5 minutes it would take to download the same data if each user had to go out to the Internet. "If information is cached at the school level, there's a high probability of it being there when it's needed," says Couch. "Information to the classroom is anywhere from 10 to 1,000 times faster than if there were no proxy in place."
Network software vendor Novell in Provo, Utah, sees similar benefits. "If you're in Novell Sydney [in Australia], sometimes you have to go all the way to Provo before you get to the Internet," says Smita Deshpande, marketing director for Novell's Internet solutions. "If you could cache a lot of that stuff right there at the Sydney site, you'd have considerable cost savings."
"Caching makes sense because storage is cheaper than transmission and because access performance from local copies is often better than performance from the [original]server," says Peter Christy, an analyst at Internet Research Group, a caching research and consulting firm in Los Altos, Calif.
While caching is quickly becoming a "must-have technology for many users," it's mainly used by Internet service providers and is only beginning to catch on in corporate America, says Christy.
Internet service providers "increasingly see caching as the best way to maintain service levels and costs. And enterprises are getting their first taste of caching performance benefits on their networks," says Christy.
The network caching market was born in February 1998 with the arrival of products from vendors such as CacheFlow, InfoLibria, Inktomi, Network Appliance and Novell, he says.
Cisco's new, more-powerful Cache Engine 500 series targets the enterprise, which should help legitimize and expand the market as a whole and corporate network caching in particular, Christy notes.
Christy pegs U.S. enterprise caching revenue at $110 million this year, growing to $1.4 billion by 2003, with corporate buyers composing about two-thirds of all caching business by then.
Significant Savings
Kentucky's department of education has already realized significant savings. Microsoft Proxy Server on Windows NT servers in 230 pilot sites has saved the state $6,000 per year per school by avoiding the need to use leased lines, says Couch, who also evaluated proxy servers from Netscape and Novell.
At less than $1 per student, Microsoft Proxy Server turned out to be far less expensive than traditional filtering software. Couch says he would have spent $14 million for Web "censorware" products and $5,000 per school for firewall technology. "Microsoft has all those things built into one," he says. He eventually plans to deploy Proxy Server on 1,600 machines in school and district offices.
UtahLink in Salt Lake City went a different route for similar caching and filtering functionality for Utah's educational institutions. A state-run Internet service provider for Utah's colleges, universities, elementary schools, high schools and state agencies, UtahLink recently replaced Network Appliance software running on Sun Microsystems Inc. Solaris machines with Novell's Internet Caching System (ICS) server software operating on 16 Compaq Computer Corp. 2000R, 1500R and 1200R computers.
ICS on Intel machines is far cheaper to maintain than Solaris boxes, and it's a snap to administer and configure, says senior network UtahLink engineer Donald Porter, who used to have to drive across the state to fix problems in remote school districts.
"Walking someone through a Solaris repair over the phone is nontrivial," says Porter. "With ICS, you put in a CD-ROM, reboot the machine, and it rebuilds itself."
Despite the myriad products available, commercial caching solutions don't offer enough sophistication for all information technology managers.
Living.com Inc.in Austin, Texas, developed its own advanced caching capabilities to supplement those available in Art Technology Group Inc.'s Dynamo application server. Registered visitors to the home products and services Web site get personalized Web pages, articles, products and services tailored for them, which Dynamo's caching couldn't provide, says Andrew Kass, living.com's technology director.
Personal Caching
"Instead of reading an HTML page off a disk, every page is dynamically suited for each person," says Kass. "Caching can give a 60-times increase in performance over no caching and running straight off a database."
Given the growing volume of Internet usage and the Internet's repetitive usage patterns, caching can offer tremendous benefits to Web surfers. In addition, experts say that because most Internet traffic is generated by a few extremely popular sites, caching the contents of these sites in locations around the world that are closer to users significantly boosts access times.
IT managers concur. "Caching is probably one of the most important things you can do to improve performance," says Kass.
-----
Kay writes about technology as a principal at Choice Communications, an editorial consulting firm in Chelmsford, Mass. |
