RE: server switch + transparent proxy

Cisco is THE MOST influencial company in the networking industry, and has
a lot of smart people; its dominant network market is not by acacedent or
marketing(like M$). But teh CCE is definetly not ready for market. we have
two units from Cisco for beta testing (we actually has 5 vendors for
cache products beta testing) and results were quite unsatisfied (trying to
put it in very nice manner):

1) Bad hardware design. There are six disks in the CE and if one failed,
   the whole CE is dead. There is no failover structure at all, worse of
   all, cisco expect you replace this box if one of hard disk failed.
   Plus, the hardware design has NOTHING more than a old fashion PC clone,
   not maintainance friendly at all.
2) The user interface. It is EXTREMLY simple to install, but it is so
   simple that one has nothing to configure it! One cann't control it and
   has no clue what is going on. One cann't get ANY management data out of
   this box at all.
3) Low hit rate. The hit rate barely reached squid (well tuned) hit rate.
4) wccp. wccp works very well in term of load banlancing on multipule CEs
   and transparent http traffic; unfortunately it works on outbound
   traffic instead of inbound traffic, which it gives routers extra
   burden.

besides these major problems above, there are some other too. i told my
Cisco rep that CE is not ready for prime time show eyt.

One thing that no one beats Cisco is that they lestens (I have talked the
product manager for this product, very sharp person). They spent time
here and they promised me that they will reengineer their product. Once
they come back, I expect that they mkae a bid splash in cache market (they
had history for that!).

BTW, don't ask me the names for other vendors, do research by yourself.

_ming

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, Barry Raveendran Greene wrote:

->
->
->> -----Original Message-----
->> From: Jaeho Yang [mailto:jhyang@nuri.net]
->
->> 2. Can I use "squid" and "CCE(Cisco Cache Engine)" together ?
->
->Yes, most of the beta sites used a combination of their existing
->proxy/caches and the Cache Engines. The Cache Engines are getting good hit
->rates even through the hierarchy is not optimal.
->
->> I ordered CCE for testing purpose. (But I didn't receive yet)
->
->Call you local Cisco Sales office. The demo units for the Sales Team should
->have shipped by now.
->
->> If first questions are cleared, I'll build up transparent cache
->> groups behind
->> server switch (LD or ACEdirector). When I build cache groups, can
->> I use
->> some "squids and some "CCE"s ?
->
->Yes. The current version of the Cache Engine software allows you to place
->them in several places in the network. Most of the existing customers are
->placing them upstream from their proxy/caches. The next version of the Cache
->Engine code has ICP, opening other integration options.
->
->Bottom line - customers are dropping the Cache Engines into their existing
->cache architecture and getting savings.
->
->> IMHO, I will make transparent cache groups private networks for
->> *ICP* use.
->> How it helpful for scalability and performance ?
->
->Perhaps the question should be how to scale ICP in a cluster of caches. This
->is tricky and there is a lot of experience on the list that can help you.
->
->Barry
->
->
->--
->--
->--
->Barry Raveendran Greene | || || |
->Senior Consultant | || || |
->Corporate Consulting Engineering | |||| |||| |
->tel: +65 738-5535 ext 235 | ..:||||||:..:||||||:.. |
->e-mail: bgreene@cisco.com | c i s c o S y s t e m s |
->~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
->PGP Public Key is registered at http://pgp5.ai.mit.edu/
->~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
->
->

============================================================================
Ming Lu Email: Ming.Lu@GlobalOne.net
Network Tech Consulting Engineer Phone: 703-689-5290 (w)
Product Engineering 703-855-4194 (m)
Global One Telecommunications, LLT. 703-689-6575 (f)
============================================================================
"Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your
 servant cursing you ---- for you know in your heart that many times you
 yourself have cursed others."
Received on Sun Mar 22 1998 - 12:15:53 MST