Content pit stops: Cache Engines from Cisco Systems speed up 'World Wide Wait'

Cisco Systems last week introduced the carrier-class Cache Engine, designed to store up to 800,000 Web pages that otherwise would make repeated trips across the Internet.

The goal is to save bandwidth and improve download time by delivering data from the Cache Engine that end users request frequently, such as photos from Princess Diana's funeral or from the Mars mission. The process reduces the number of times that service providers use their wide area network connections and helps them reduce costs.

"By offering the Cisco Cache Engine, Cisco is providing leading-edge technology that enables customers to improve overall network performance and scale their infrastructure to support additional users," said Christine Hemrick, vice president and general manager of the company's Internet Appliances and Applications business unit. Cisco unveiled its product at the ITU Telecom Interactive '97 show in Geneva.

The Cache Engine requires no client configuration, making it transparent to the user. It communicates with a Cisco router, which redirects Web requests to the Cache Engine using the Web Cache Control Protocol, a new feature of Cisco's IOS software. Service providers then have no need to reconfigure their clients' browsers.

If some type of failure occurs, the requests for Web content are routed across the network as usual.

"It might slow down, but you still have access to the data," said Jim Grubb, product line manager in the Internet Appliances and Applications Business Unit.

The engine's scalability combines up to 32 Cache Engines into a fault-tolerant cache farm. The farm can support up to 500,000 users at a single point of presence and store about 25 million Web pages.

The engine also is based on a real-time operating system, saving on ownership costs, and can be configured to filter content. "Since we're intercepting Web-based traffic, we can install content control so we can give service providers filtered accounts for children, for example," said Grubb. Such filters for screening out pornography and gambling could be used by schools and libraries, he said.

"You can also install a 'good' list," Grubb said. This would let employees visit the sites of health-care providers that are part of their company's health plan, for example.

"The benefit for this technology gets greater as the links get more expensive," he noted, so it could save a lot of money for a European carrier whose clients access many Web sites from the U.S.

The Cache Engine addresses the pressure that service providers are feeling to provide higher-quality access to end users, said John Morency, director of The Registry's network industry practice.

"The effective caching performance scales with the number of incremental Cache Engines," he said. "The service provider needs only to add more engines to scale up. You don't have to add new protocols, invest in asynchronous transfer mode, change your infrastructure or, if you're a Cisco user, change the routers themselves."

Sun Microsystems took another step toward consumer-oriented technology by agreeing to acquire Paris-based Chorus Systems, an operating systems supplier.

The deal will incorporate Chorus as part of a new Sun Embedded Systems Software group. The group will include the JavaOS development and marketing team and will focus on producing open system software solutions for the embedded market. Sun made the announcement last week at ITU Telecom Interactive '97 in Geneva. Conditions of the deal were not disclosed.

The move follows Sun's recent acquisitions of Diba Inc., an interactive appliance maker, and Integrity Arts, a former subsidiary of smart card powerhouse GemPlus.

With the Chorus acquisition, Sun will do more than try to squeeze a desktop operating system into a hand-held device. The applications that Sun will develop for devices such as set-top boxes and wireless terminals will have guaranteed transaction response times and Java capabilities, said Tricia McWilliams, telecom industry market development manager for Sun's Java Systems Group.