Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect

This chapter provides an overview of Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect, and describes the hardware requirements for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect, including how to upgrade Cisco vWAAS memory and disk for the Akamai cache engine.

This chapter contains the following sections:

About Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect

Akamai Connect is the HTTP/S object cache component added to Cisco WAAS, integrated into the existing WAAS software stack and leveraged via the HTTP Application Optimizer.

  • Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect helps to reduce latency for HTTP/S traffic for business and web applications, and can improve performance for many applications, including Point of Sale (POS), HD video, digital signage, and in-store order processing.

  • Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect provides significant and measurable WAN data offload, and is compatible with existing WAAS functions such as DRE (deduplication), LZ (compression), TFO (Transport Flow Optimization), and SSL acceleration (secure/encrypted) for first and second pass acceleration.

  • For more information on Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect, see the chapter "Configuring Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect" in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide.

Cisco vWAAS in Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect is an integrated solution that combines WAN optimization and intelligent object caching to accelerate HTTP/S applications, video, and content.

Cisco vWAAS in Cisco WAAS with Akamai Connect helps reduce latency for HTTP/HTTPS traffic for business and web applications, and can improve performance for many applications, including Point of Sale (POS), HD video, digital signage, and in-store order processing. It provides significant and measurable WAN data offload, and is compatible with existing Cisco WAAS functions such as DRE, LZ, TFO, and SSL acceleration for first and second pass acceleration.

For more information, see the "Configuring Application Acceleration" chapter of the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide.

Supported Platforms for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect

The following table shows supported platforms for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect, up to 6,000 connections.

Table 1. Supported Cisco Devices for Akamai Caching, Up to 6,000 Connections

Cisco vWAAS

Cisco ISR-WAAS

Cisco WAVE

Cisco SRE-SM (for WAAS Version 6.2.x and earlier)

vWAAS-150 (for Cisco WAAS Version 6.1.1 and later)

  • ISR-G2

  • ISR-G3

  • N/A

  • N/A

vWAAS-200

  • ISR-WAAS-750

    • ISR-4451

    • ISR-4431

    • ISR-4351

    • ISR-4331

    • ISR-4321

  • WAVE-294

  • SRE-SM-700

vWAAS-750

  • ISR-WAAS-1300

    • ISR-4451

    • ISR-4431
  • WAVE-594

  • SRE-SM-900

vWAAS-1300

  • ISR-WAAS-2500

    • ISR-4451

  • WAVE-694

  • SRE-SM-710

vWAAS-2500

  • N/A

  • N/A

  • SRE-SM-910

vWAAS-6000

  • N/A

  • N/A

  • N/A

The following table shows supported platforms for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect, beyond 6,000 connections

Table 2. Supported Cisco vWAAS Models for Akamai Caching, Beyond 6,000 Connections

Cisco vWAAS Model

Total HTTP Object Cache Connections

Cache Engine Cache Disk

Additional Resource to be Added

vWAAS-12000

12,000

750 GB

6 GB RAM, 750 GB disk

vWAAS-50000

50,000

850 GB

850 GB disk

Note

In Cisco vWAAS in WAAS Version 6.2.x, Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect beyond 6,000 connections is not supported for Cisco vWAAS on RHEL KVM or KVM on CentOS.

Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect License

Cisco iWAN with Akamai Connect is an advanced license that you can add to Cisco WAAS. The license for Cisco iWAN with Akamai Connect is aligned with the number of optimized connections in each supported Cisco WAAS model.

The following table lists the standalone licenses for Cisco iWAN with Akamai Connect and vWAAS. For information on all licenses for Cisco iWAN with Akamai Connect, see the Cisco Intelligent WAN with Akamai Connect Data Sheet.


Note

The actual number of connections for each Cisco iWAN with Akamai Connect License shown in the following table is dependent on the hardware module on which Cisco WAAS is running.

Table 3. Licenses for Cisco IWAN with Akamai Connect with vWAAS

Cisco IWAN with Akamai Connect License

License Description

Supported Platforms(vWAAS platforms in bolded text)

SL-1300-AKC

Akamai Connect license for up to 1,300 WAAS connections

  • ISR-2900 or ISR-3900 and one of the following:

    vWAAS-1300 or lower (UCS-E)

  • ISR-4451, ISR-4431, ISR-4351, or ISR-4331:

    vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • UCS server:

    vWAAS-1300 or lower

  • WAVE-594

SL-2500-AKC

Akamai Connect license for up to 2,500 WAAS connections

  • ISR-2900 or ISR-3900 and one of the following:

    vWAAS-2500 or lower (UCS-E)

  • ISR-4451:

    vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • UCS server:

    vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • WAVE-694

SL-6000-AKC

Akamai Connect license for up to 6,000 WAAS connections

  • ISR-2900/ISR-3900 and one of the following:

    vWAAS-6000 or lower (UCS-E)

  • UCS server:

    vWAAS-6000 or lower

  • WAVE-694

Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect Hardware Requirements

The following table shows the hardware requirements for Cisco UCS E-Series and CIsco ISR-WAAS for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect.


Note
For information on hardware requirements for vWAAS with Akamai Connect on Hyper-V, see Configuring GPT Disk Format for vWAAS-50000 on Hyper-V with Akamai Connect in the chapter "Cisco vWAAS on Microsoft Hyper-V."
Table 4. Hardware Requirements for vWAAS with Akamai Connect

Cisco vWAAS or WAAS Model

Memory Required for vWAAS with Akamai Connect

Disk Required for vWAAS with Akamai Connect

vWAAS-150

4 GB

160 GB

vWAAS-200

4 GB

260 GB

vWAAS-750

4 GB

500 GB

vWAAS-1300

6 GB

600 GB

vWAAS-2500

8 GB

750 GB

vWAAS-6000

11 GB

900 GB

vWAAS-12000

18 GB

1500 GB

vWAAS-50000

48 GB

2350 GB

ISR-WAAS-200

2 GB

170 GB

ISR-WAAS-750

4 GB

170 GB

ISR-WAAS-1300

6 GB

170 GB

ISR-WAAS-2500

8 GB

360 GB

For more information on cache engine memory requirements and cache engine disk requirements, see Akamai Connect Cache Engine on Cisco Mid-End and High-End Platforms.

Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk for Akamai Connect

This section contains the following sections:

Upgrading Memory and Disk for Earlier Versions of Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect

Before you begin


Note

The following procedure is for Cisco WAAS systems running a Cisco WAAS version earlier than Cisco WAAS Version 6.1.1. If Cisco vWAAS in Cisco WAAS Version 6.1.1 or later is running on your Cisco WAAS system, the Akamai disk is added by default, and you do not need to use the following installation procedure.

If you are running Cisco vWAAS in an early Cisco WAAS version with the following parameters, and want to upgrade to Cisco WAAS Version 5.4.1, 5.5.1, or 6.1.1, use the update memory and disk procedure to as described in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Release Note for the specified Cisco WAAS version.

  • A Cisco WAAS version earlier than Cisco WAAS Version 5.4.1

  • A VMware ESXi version earlier than VMware ESXi Version 5.0

Procedure

Step 1

Power off the Cisco vWAAS.
Step 2

Right-click the Cisco vWAAS and select Editing Settings....

Step 3

Click Add....

Step 4

In the Add Hardware dialog box, select Hard Disk and click Next.

Step 5

In the Select a Disk dialog box, select Create a new virtual disk and click Next.

Step 6

In the Create a Disk dialog box:

  • From the Capacity drop-down list, choose the size of the new disk.

  • From the Disk Provisioning drop-down list, choose Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed.

  • From the Location drop-down list, choose Store with the virtual machine.

  • Click Next.

Step 7

In the Advanced Options dialog box:

  • From the Virtual Device Node drop-down list, choose SCSI (0:2).

  • From the Mode drop-down list, choose Persistent.

  • Click Next.

Step 8

In the Ready to Complete dialog box, confirm the following options:

  • Hardware type

  • Create disk

  • Disk capacity

  • Disk provisioning

  • Datastore

  • Virtual Device Node

  • Disk mode
Step 9

Click Finish.

The window displays the status message New hard Disk (adding).

Step 10

Click OK.

Step 11

Wait until the Recent Tasks window displays the Reconfigure Virtual machine task as Completed, and then power on the Cisco vWAAS.

Step 12

To verify the new disk, display the current hardware listing with Virtual Machine Properties > Hardware.

Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk for Cisco vWAAS-12000 with VMware ESXi

Before you begin

When the Cisco vWAAS-12000 is deployed, the RAM size is 12 GB and the /local/local1 directory size is 15 GB. When you enable Akamai Connect for Cisco vWAAS, increase the RAM to 18 GB.


Note

This procedure alters the calculation of the local1 directory size for the vWAAS-12000 because the expected size is 27 GB. The mismatch between the existing size (15 GB) for the local1 directory and the expected size (27 GB) triggers an alarm.

The mismatch between RAM size and disk size may cause a serious problem during a kernel crash in the Cisco vWAAS-12000, because the vmcore file will then be larger than what could be stored in the local1 directory.

To avoid the scenario described in the above Note, and to safely upgrade vWAAS memory and disk for Akamai Connect for the Cisco vWAAS-12000, use the following procedure:

Procedure

Step 1

Power off the Cisco vWAAS VM.
Step 2

Add an additional disk of the required size for your system.
Step 3

Increase the size of the RAM.

Note 
To run Akamai Connect on Cisco vWAAS-12000, increase the size of the RAM by at least 6 GB.
Step 4

Power on the Cisco vWAAS VM.
Step 5

Check the alarms.

The filesystem_size_mism alarm is raised: 

Critical Alarms
----------------------

Alarm ID                  Module/Submodule          Instance
----------------------    ------------------        ---------------
1 filesystem_size_mism    disk                      Filesystem size
Step 6

Run the disk delete-data-partitions command.

Note 
The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes the cache files, including DRE cache files.
Step 7

Reload the device.

  • After running the disk delete-data-partitions command, you must reload the device.

    The reload process automatically re-creates data partitions, and initializes the caches. This process may take several minutes.

    DRE optimization will not start until the DRE cache has finished initializing.

Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk for Cisco vWAAS-12000 with Microsoft Hyper-V

Before you begin

When the Cisco vWAAS-12000 is deployed, the RAM size is 12 GB and the /local/local1 directory size is 15 GB. When you enable Akamai Connect for Cisco vWAAS, increase the RAM to 18 GB.


Note

This procedure alters the calculation of the local1 directory size for the vWAAS-12000 because the expected size is 27 GB. The mismatch between the existing size (15 GB) for the local1 directory and the expected size (27 GB) triggers an alarm.

The mismatch between RAM size and disk size may cause a serious problem during a kernel crash in the Cisco vWAAS-12000, because the vmcore file will then be larger than what could be stored in the local1 directory.

To avoid the scenario described in the above Note, and to safely upgrade vWAAS memory and disk for Akamai Connect for the Cisco vWAAS-12000, use the following procedure:

Procedure

Step 1

Power off the vWAAS VM.
Step 2

Add an additional disk of the required size for your system.
Step 3

Increase the size of the RAM.

Note 
To run Akamai Connect on vWAAS-12000, you must increase the size of the RAM by at least6 GB.
Step 4

Increase the size of the kdump file from 12.2 GB to 19 GB.

To enable the kernel crash dump mechanism, use the kernel kdump enable global configuration command. To display kernel crash dump information for the device, use the show kdump EXEC command.

Step 5

Power on the Cisco vWAAS VM.
Step 6

Check the alarms.

The filesystem_size_mism alarm will be raised: 

Critical Alarms
----------------------

Alarm ID                  Module/Submodule          Instance
----------------------    ------------------        ---------------
1 filesystem_size_mism    disk                      Filesystem size
Step 7

Run the disk delete-data-partitions command.

Note 
The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes the cache files, including the DRE cache files.
Step 8

Reload the device.

  • After running the disk delete-data-partitions command, you must reload the device.

    The reload process automatically re-creates data partitions, and initializes the caches. This process may take several minutes.

    DRE optimization will not start until the DRE cache has finished initializing.

Cisco vWAAS-150 with Akamai Connect

Consider the following guidelines for Cisco vWAAS-150 with Akamai Connect:

  • For Cisco vWAAS in WAAS Version 6.1.1 and later, Cisco vWAAS-150 on Cisco ISR-WAAS is supported for Akamai Connect. For Cisco vWAAS in WAAS Version 6.2.1 and later, vWAAS-150 is also supported for RHEL KVM and Microsoft Hyper-V.

    Downgrading Cisco vWAAS-150 for RHEL KVM or for Microsoft Hyper-v to a version earlier than vWAAS in Cisco WAAS Version 6.2.1 is not supported.

  • For the Cisco vWAAS-150 model, the Cisco WAAS Central Manager must be Cisco WAAS Version 6.2.1 or later, but the mixed versions of device models (Cisco WAAS Version 6.2.1 and earlier) are also supported. The Cisco WAAS Central Manager must be a version that is equal to or later than the associated devices.

    Cisco vWAAS-150 is deployed only in Cisco WAAS Version 6.1.1 and later. Therefore, you cannot upgrade or downgrade Cisco vWAAS-150 from Cisco WAAS Version 6.1.1.

The following table shows specifications for vWAAS-150.

Table 5. Cisco vWAAS-150 Profile

Feature

Description

Memory with Akamai Connect

4 GB

Disk with Akamai Connect

160 GB

vCPU

1 vCPU

Module

Cisco UCS E-Series NCE blade (PID: UCS-EN120E-208-M2/K9), supported on Cisco ISR-G2 platform

NIM Module

Cisco UCS E-Series NCE NIM blade (PID: UCS-EN140N-M2/K9), supported on Cisco ISR-G3 platform

Akamai Connect Cache Engine on Cisco Mid-End and High-End Platforms

In Cisco WAAS Version 6.2.1 and later, the Akamai Connect Cache Engine is supported for scaling beyond 6,000 Cisco vWAAS connections on the following platforms:

  • Cisco WAVE-7541, Cisco WAVE-7571, and Cisco WAVE-8541

  • Cisco vWAAS-12000 and Cisco vWAAS-50000

Scaling for these platforms is based on memory availability, scale performance, and the particular dynamic cache size management feature. The table "Cisco WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements" shows the connections, total memory, and cache engine memory requirements for each of these platforms. The table "Cisco WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Cache Disk Requirements" shows the connections, number of disks, and cache engine disks for each of these platforms.

The Akamai Connect cache engine connection-handling capacity is determined by the upper limit of memory that is given to the Akamai Connect cache engine at startup. The Akamai Connect cache engine allocates memory, as needed, up to the upper limit; on approaching that limit, it pushes back new connections. In case of overload, the connection is optimized by HTTP-AO, without caching benefit.

For Cisco vWAAS-12000 and Cisco vWAAS-50000, HTTP object cache will scale up to the platform TFO limit. To achieve this, augment the platform resources (CPU, RAM, and disk) during provisioning:

  • For vWAAS-12000, allocate at least 6 GB of additional RAM.

  • For vWAAS-12000 and vWAAS-50000, allocate cache engine cache disk resources. Cache disk requirements are shown in the table "Cisco WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Cache Disk Requirements".

Table 6. Cisco WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements

Cisco WAAS Platform

HTTP Object Cache Connections

CPU

Total Memory

Memory Required forCache Engine

vWAAS-12000

12 K

4

18 GB

4308 M

vWAAS-50000

50 K

8

48 GB

14136 M

WAVE-7541

18 K

2

24 GB

5802 M

WAVE-7571

60 K/ 50 K/ 40 K

2

48 GB

15360 M or 14125 M or 11565 M

WAVE-8541

150 K/ 125 K/1 00 K

2

96 GB

38400 M or 32000 M or 25600 M
Table 7. Cisco WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Cache Disk Requirements

Cisco WAAS Platform

HTTP Object Cache Connections

CPU

Disk/ CE Cache Disk

Cache Engine Cache Disk

vWAAS-12000

12 K

4

750 GB

750 GB

vWAAS-50000

50 K

8

1500 GB

850 GB

WAVE-7541

18 K

2

2200 GB

708 GB

WAVE-7571

60 K/ 50 K/ 40 K

2

3100 GB

839 GB

WAVE-8541

150 K/ 125 K/100 K

2

4.1 TB

675 GB