The Benefits of High-Performance Network Caching
telecoms-mag.com
As multinational corporations look for new ways to operate more responsively and efficiently, they learn that intranet technology is often at the heart of prospective solutions.
Peter Galvin
Intranets offer a cost-effective way to disseminate local information and competitive knowledge, and provide a convenient companywide communications vehicle. However, deployment of a cohesive global corporate intranet strategy comes with its own set of challenges, including financial constraints, scarcity of development resources, and limitations in technology.
Network caching--storing local copies of frequently requested information--helps companies realize the benefits of a global intranet in delivering immediate, significant return on investment (ROI) and providing superior quality of service to local end-user populations around the world.
As multinational companies strive to serve global customers better, comprehensive expansion of the corporate intranet emerges as a logical way to extend these benefits across the organization. That seems easy enough; you need only add local access points at satellite offices around the world to create a single, global corporate intranet, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, no global network--public or private--is that simple. Intranets come with their own implementation and operational challenges, particularly when information flows from headquarters across the globe.
Roadblocks
There are three major challenges to global intranet development:
Cost;
Development resources;
Infrastructure capacity.
Cost. Organizations that do not invest in building robust global intranets today are likely to find themselves caving in soon to competitive demands and pressures from management and users. These organizations will be faced with a forklift infrastructure buildout; they will need to funnel massive amounts of computing and development resources into playing intranet catch-up.
But being a technology leader also carries a hefty price tag. When building a global intranet today, the cost of servers, network gear, and storage is only the beginning. Telecom costs quickly become one of the largest line items in the global intranets operational budget.
In the United States, telecom costs are among the lowest in the world and provisioning is relatively straightforward. In Europe and Asia-Pacific, however, long-distance tariffs are significantly higher. High-performance global Internet access will never be cheap, said Mike ODell, chief scientist at UUNet, an Internet service provider, because the long-haul infrastructure is just too damn expensive.
Sometimes even access is unattainable. In Latin America and in Asia, for example, setting up multiple T1 and T3 communications trunks can be next to impossible. Often companies simply cannot get access to the pipe they need to operate a global intranet successfully.
Development resources. As IS departments scramble to support core intranet development, Year 2000 reprogramming, and everyday activities, global intranets quickly slide from the IS departments must-do list to its wish list.
Infrastructure capacity. Internet backbone traffic is multiplying at a blinding rate, resulting in widespread network congestion. At a corporate level, addressing this issue is not simply a matter of expanding network infrastructure to increase capacity. This alone will not allow users to enjoy fast intranet response times. Internet volume statistics must be examined closely to reveal underlying causes.
For example, the reported amount of redundant traffic on Internet backbones today is between 40 percent and 80 percent. Companies can expect to see similarly high rates of redundant traffic as numerous employees in a multitude of offices access the same product and administrative materials. Furiously installing more network infrastructure is not the answer. A more innovative approach is required if companies are to outsmart the spiraling volume of Internet traffic.
Traffic Elimination
To deploy global intranets successfully and affordably, network traffic must be reduced. Why? Given the inefficiency of long-haul traffic and the impossibility of supplying enough bandwidth to keep pace with data volume, traffic reduction is the only logical answer.
In fact, in todays environment, it is smarter and cheaper to store data than to move it. Rather than accepting the status quo inefficiencies of IP networks--over which the same information is sent again and again--intranet architects must change the way their networks function. They can dramatically reduce traffic by transforming the intranet into a smart network that automatically moves needed content close to users. Only then will global intranets begin to deliver high levels of ROI, as existing infrastructure is leveraged to deliver new levels of functionality.
Network caching is a technically elegant way to reduce network traffic, delivering immediate ROI and creating an intranet architecture designed for growth. The concept of caching is not new; it has been used in computers (mainframes, minis, and micros) and components (disks, RAM chips) for more than 30 years. Caching increases speed and performance by storing frequently used data or instructions locally, thereby reducing access time.
This technique is already used by Web browsers to maintain small caches of previously viewed Web pages on a users hard drive. Likewise, backbone carriers and Internet service providers are installing large-scale caches to buffer overtaxed network backbones. Intranet architects can achieve the same efficiency and scalability by embedding caches at strategic points on their private networks, in front of expensive WAN connections.
On the global intranet, caching cleverly eliminates the need to transport data over expensive long-haul links. Instead of sending each user an individual copy of a frequently accessed piece of information from its source location, that information is stored on an intelligent network of storage centers. The information is then delivered to the local user from the local server. This opens up bandwidth capacity for faster Internet access, as well as other network services, such as IP telephony or distance learning.
Network caching migrates frequently accessed data closer to users, while automatically dealing with content freshness and dynamic pages. In effect, caches serve as demand-driven mirror services that adapt dynamically to optimize for changing traffic patterns. In a corporate environment, copies of popular information, such as human resources policies, engineering schematics, or video streaming archives, are created automatically, optimizing network traffic flow and reducing resource waste. Without caching, it is impossible to send these kinds of documents or binary objects (some are many gigabytes in size) without bringing an intranet to its knees.
The Smart Network
For intranets, caching technologies and implementations are in their infancy; today most serve only a few hundred users. To be deployed effectively in global corporate intranets with thousands of desktops, a new generation of caching technologies must be used. The caching solution must be able to store a substantial amount of frequently accessed content and effectively manage large amounts of data flow across global intranet links. These high-capacity network caches are essential in making global intranets smarter.
Network cache technology in corporate environments requires the following capabilities:
Scalability: Network caches must scale from a few hundred users to many thousands. They must also be able to scale to handle very large content databases ranging from 25 gigabytes to a terabyte or more as corporations expand their use of multimedia and video in enterprise applications and communications. To maintain operational flexibility and low costs, a caching architecture must gracefully accommodate any level of load; time-consuming re-architecting simply is not feasible.
High performance: If network caches are not faster than using the long-haul network, the purpose of network caching is defeated. Network caches must be able to handle event-driven traffic spikes caused by news or company activity.
Fault tolerance: Network caches must be designed to handle the problems that challenge both the Internet and dedicated corporate networks to operate smoothly: brownouts, interrupted service at network access points, server failures, and other disruptions due to accidents or acts of nature.
Ease of management and reliability: To minimize the possibility of human error, easy-to-use management tools that automate administration as much as possible must complement caching.
Security and access controls: In corporate environments, security is important to protect sensitive data and thwart access attempts from external intruders. This is especially important for remotely managed systems.
Benefits for Corporate Users
High-performance network caching can deliver two important benefits to companies with global intranets: significant cost savings and enhanced quality of service (which can drive across-the-board productivity increases).
Cost savings are based on significantly lower hardware costs compared to symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) alternatives and reduced telecom costs. By dramatically reducing the level of redundant traffic on the corporate intranet, long-haul telecom charges can be cut to a fraction of what they would be in a traditional intranet configuration. Furthermore, adding computing resources incrementally allows a company to pay incrementally as it builds its global intranet.
Such cost savings often provide the incentive multinational companies need when considering expanding a headquarters intranet to include subsidiaries around the world. Instead of limiting innovative intranet programs to one region, entire worldwide user bases can reap their benefits.
Caching solutions also deliver a quality of network service thats far superior to traditional intranet configurations. If a user in Tokyo needs a piece of routine corporate information from New York, she neednt be slowed by network latency as the information travels across the planet. On a global intranet, that information would be available from a server in the Tokyo area delivered in a flash to her desktop. The cache insulates users from congestion on public or private WAN links, maximizing productivity and minimizing frustration.
Building smart networks has never been more important, as the worlds largest global corporations seek competitive advantages through technology. In all industries, knowledge workers increasingly depend on fast access to critical information. With a caching infrastructure to provide robust and efficient access, global intranets are their lifelines.
Peter Galvin is the director of traffic server marketing for Inktomi Corp. His responsibilities include product marketing, product management, business development, and overall management of the traffic server business. Before joining Inktomi, Galvin was with Oracle and previously with Andrew Corp., an Illinois-based telecom and networking company. Galvin has a bachelors degree in economics and an M.B.A. in marketing from Clark University.
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