Caching Diverts Web Overflow

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September 28, 1998 (2:11 PM EDT)

By John Fontana,

If you're finding too much Web traffic on your corporate network, maybe it's time to start carrying cache.

ArrowPoint Communications thinks so. The Westford, Mass., start-up said it plans next week to introduce switching software that uses caching technology to help IT managers better manage the flow of Web traffic across their LANs and WANs.

The new software will turn ArrowPoint's load-balancing Content Smart Switch hardware, which initially was released in April, into the Content Smart Cache Switch (CSC), an intelligent switch that acts as a front end for Web-cache server clusters.

The enhanced switch can reduce WAN traffic, cut network costs, and improve intranet user-response times by managing cached Web objects, ArrowPoint officials said.

Not all analysts agree on the need for Web- caching in corporate environments, but early users of the new ArrowPoint switching software said they are reaping significant benefits.

"We've seen a 15 percent reduction in our network costs with an average of 40 percent of our content cached," said Stephen Van Beaver, vice president of operations at RoadRunner, a high-speed cable-modem Internet-access venture formed by Compaq, MediaOne, Microsoft, and Time Warner.

"We've seen a 15 percent reduction in our network costs with an average of 40 percent of our content cached."
-- Stephen Van Beaver
RoadRunner

CSC helped RoadRunner consolidate its reporting, administration, and management functions at a single point, as well as to cluster the company's Sun servers. Better efficiency on the back end has helped RoadRunner deliver better Web services to its customers, Van Beaver said.

"We are getting tremendous pressure from large enterprises to provide Web efficiencies for services such as Web commerce and advertising," he added.

CSC can analyze Web traffic at the URL level, which lets it read the contents of HTTP requests and make intelligent decisions on where best to fulfill them. Content-sorting is not available on many other load-balancing switches that examine traffic at the TCP port level and send every HTTP request through a cache server.

"The only way to handle traffic flow is to look at HTTP requests. It's the only way to provide scale," said Cheng Wu, president and CEO of ArrowPoint.

CSC also can direct requests to the cache without tying up WAN bandwidth, which means users get better response time, ArrowPoint officials said. The new software also lets IT managers set policies that help optimize and back up Web traffic according to its content.

Caching technology has yet to catch fire in the enterprise, but some observers said the flames will be fanned over the next year. Collaborative Research said it predicts 56 percent of enterprises will adopt the technology by 2002, creating a $250 million market for cache-server front ends.

"Enterprise awareness of caching is being driven by electronic commerce, extranets, and publishing on the Web," said Peter Christy, an analyst at Collaborative Research. "The enterprise needs [caching] as the use of browser interfaces for internal systems rises."

But dynamic Web data, such as that produced by Computer Graphics Interface scripts or Active Server Pages, cannot be cached, critics observed.

"If you want highly interactive sites, it's hard to achieve that goal with caching," said Joe Inzerillo, technical director at Chicago's United Center, home of the NBA champion Chicago Bulls. "The whole intranet phenomenon is not applicable to caching. You want users going back to databases and Web servers to get fresh information."

Ed Beddow, intranet webmaster at United Parcel Service, concurred. "Ninety percent of our [intranet Web] pages are data driven off a database, and we can't cache that stuff," he said.

Tom Nolle, president of consultancy CIMI, said, "Nothing in any research shows there is anything in the enterprise to justify large-scale deployment of Web-caching."

But vendors that make Web cache servers said switches such as ArrowPoint's CSC could change the intranet landscape.

"ArrowPoint increases performance of our product by about 10 percent," said Peter Danzig, chief architect for Internet products at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Network Appliance, which makes Web cache servers.

"Enhanced Layer 4 functionality will play an important role in providing better access to Web data," said Kelly Herrell, vice president of marketing at Sunnyvale, Calif.-based CacheFlow, which makes a Web cache device that runs on its own operating system. CacheFlow already has partnerships with Alteon and Foundry, and the company plans to add support for ArrowPoint, Herrell said.

ArrowPoint's Content Smart Cache Switch software will initially run on ArrowPoint's CS-100 switch, a stand-alone box with 12 Fast Ethernet ports. Early next year, the new software will run on ArrowPoint's CS-800, a chassis system with 64 Fast Ethernet ports and a 20-gigabit-per-second switch. The new software will ship at the end of October; pricing for both hardware and software will start at $20,000.