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:
Ch> Managing Applications 3     Testing New Applications 4     Reducing Application Latency 5 Managing Distributed Servers 6     Protecting Data on Distributed Servers 6     Providing Timely Remote Service and Support 8     Using Centralized Management Methods 8 Facing the Unavoidable WAN 8 Changing the Application Business Model 9 Consolidating and Protecting Servers in the New IT Operational Model 10     Server Consolidation 11     Compliance, Data Protection, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery 15 Summary 18   Chapter 2     Barriers to Application Performance 21 Networks and Application Performance 21     Bandwidth 25     Latency 33     Throughput 45 Application and Protocol Barriers to Application Performance 50     Application Protocols 51     Network Stability 57 Operating System Barriers to Application Performance 61     Microsoft Corporation 61     Sun Microsystems 63     Red Hat 64     Hewlett-Packard 65     IBM 66 Hardware Barriers to Application Performance 67 Central Processing Unit 67 Random Access Memory 69 Disk Storage 70 File System Considerations 74 Network Interface Cards 79 Summary 81   Chapter 3     Aligning Network Resources with Business Priority 83 Viewing Network Utilization 84     NetFlow 84     Network Based Application Recognition 90 Employing Quality of Service 92     Packet Classification 95     Pre-Queuing Operators 96     Queuing and Scheduling 100     Post-Queuing Optimization 105 Understanding Accelerator Control Features and Integration 106     Overview of Accelerator Technology 106     Integrating Accelerators into the Network 117 Architecture of Accelerator Services 121 Summary 125   Chapter 4    Overcoming Application-Specific Barriers 127 Understanding Application-Specific Acceleration 128 Application-Specific Caching 128     Advantages of Application-Specific Caching 129     Cache Validation and Content Freshness 130     Streaming Media: RTSP, HTTP, and Flash 146 Web-Based Database Applications 149 Read-Ahead 154 Message Prediction 157 Pipelining and Multiplexing 159 Summary 161   Chapter 5     Content Delivery Networks 163 Evolution of Content Delivery Networks 164 Understanding CDN Solutions 165 A Common Content Distribution Scenario 166 Understanding CDN Components 168 Managing a CDN 173     Identifying Target Content 173     Understanding Protocol Requirements 173     Choosing Suitable Content Acquisition Methods 174     Managing Multiple Platforms Across Distributed Networks 178     Managing Costs 180     Usage Planning 181 Sharing the WAN 183 Using Desktop Management Suites with Content Delivery Networks 184     Combining Solutions 185     Combining Management Functions 185     Establishing Storage Requirements 187 Using Centralized Network Settings 188     Centralized Streaming Control 189     Centralized Administration of Authentication and Authorization 189     Centralized Access Control List Administration 191     Centralized SNMP Control 192     Centralized Monitoring 192         Centralized Edge Management 193 Understanding Content-Serving Protocols 194     CIFS 194     HTTP 195     HTTPS 196     FTP 197     RTSP 197     TFTP 199 Streaming Media Live or On Demand 199     Live Streaming 199     Video on Demand 200 Authenticating Requests for Prepositioned Content 200 Acquiring Content 202     Cookie-Based Acquisition 204     Origin Server Content Placement 204     Content Size Considerations 205     Department-Managed Portals 207 Understanding CDN Distribution Models 207     Direct Fetch 207         Distributed Hierarchy 210 Understanding Time-of-Day Distribution 215     Know the Network 216     Unicast Distribution 217     Multicast Distribution 218     Encrypted and In-the-Clear Distribution 223 Understanding Software-Based Content Delivery Networks 224     Native Protocol Playback of Streaming Media 226     Streaming Media and Executive Demand 228     Understanding Explicit and Transparent Proxy Modes 230 Using CDN Calculation Tools 231     General Content Storage 232     Streaming Media Storage 233     Calculating Content Delivery Times 234 Summary 235   Chapter 6     Overcoming Transport and Link Capacity Limitations 237 Understanding Transport Protocol Limitations 238 Understanding Transmission Control Protocol Fundamentals 240     Connection-Oriented Service 241     Guaranteed Delivery 242     Bandwidth Discovery 246 Overcoming Transport Protocol Limitations 250     Of Mice and Elephants: Short-Lived Connections and Long Fat Networks 251     Overcoming Packet Loss-Related Performance Challenges 258     Advanced TCP Implementations 261     Accelerator TCP Proxy Functionality 267 Overcoming Link Capacity Limitations 270     Accelerators and Compression 271     Accelerator Compression Architectures 281 Summary 289   Chapter 7     Examining Accelerator Technology Scenarios 291 Acme Data Corporation: Protecting Data and Promoting Global Collaboration 292     Observed Challenges 294     Accelerator Solution 295 C3 Technology LLC: Saving WAN Bandwidth and Replicating Data 302     Observed Challenges 303     Accelerator Solution 303 Command Grill Corporation: Improving HTTP Application Performance 308     First Attempts to Improve Application Performance 309     Accelerator Solution 309 Almost Write Inc.: Implementing Content Delivery Networking 314     Observed Challenges 316     Accelerator Solution 316 Summary 320   Appendix A Common Ports and Assigned Applications 323   Appendix B Ten Places for More Information 347