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Cisco Application and Content Networking System (ACNS) Software

Determining Savings When Using Caching

Document ID: 21974



Contents

Introduction
Before You Begin
      Conventions
      Prerequisites
      Components Used
Determine Savings
      Proxy Caching
      Transparent Caching
      Using a Router to Determine Bandwidth Savings
      Explanation of the Show Statistics Commands
Related Information

Introduction

This document shows how cache savings can be calculated using the tools and commands available on Cache Engines, Content Engines, and Routers.

Before You Begin

Conventions

For more information on document conventions, see the Cisco Technical Tips Conventions.

Prerequisites

Readers of this document should be knowledgeable of the following:

  • Transparent and Proxy Caching

  • Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP)

  • Cisco IOS©

  • Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

Components Used

The information in this document is based on the software and hardware versions below.

  • Cisco IOS 12.1 through to 12.2.7

  • Caching - Content Software 2.5.1 and ACNS 4.X

  • All Route Platforms

  • All Caching - Content Platform CE507, CE560, CE590, CE7320, CE505, CE550, CE570

Determine Savings

There are three areas of discussion when looking at the savings available for caching; transparent caching, proxy caching and using the routers interface counters.

Proxy Caching

In a proxy caching setup where the clients browses are set to point directly to the cache engine on a predetermined port the calculation of savings is straight forward.

There are different commands that are used to determine exactly how the cache is performing.

show statistics http savings

show statistics ftp

show statistics wmt. savings  (Only available in ACNS 4.X and above)

show statistics mediacache real savings  (Only available in ACNS 4.X and above)

Note: Although you can set the secure proxy (https) up in the proxy settings on a browser we only tunnel this session and can not cache it because it is encrypted.

Transparent Caching

In a transparent caching setup, where no settings are required in the clients browser and traffic is intercepted at a router and sent to the cache using the Web Cache Communications Protocol(WCCP), the calculation of saving is just as straight forward.

These are the commands needed to determine the savings.

show statistics http savings

show statistics wmt savings  (Only available in ACNS 4.X and above)

show statistics mediacache real savings  (Only available in ACNS 4.X and above)

Note: In transparent mode we can not cache ftp or https sessions.  These sessions are not sent to the cache and are passed directly to the origin server.

Using a Router to Determine Bandwidth Savings

When using a router to determine the saving there are a number of things to consider to get an accurate measure of the savings in raw bandwidth.  The most important thing to do is get a baseline.  In order to do this you need to monitor the link utilization of the upstream link from your router that is connected to the internet.  In a reverse proxy caching (RPC) setup you need to monitor the load on your servers.  There are many tools available to monitor link utilization via SNMP.  On freely available tool is MRTG, this application is not supported or supplied by Cisco.  It can be found at Multi Router Traffic Grapher leavingcisco.com.

On a Cisco router you monitor the following counters on the show interface command on the link to the internet,  bytes in and bytes out.  In order to get a base line you need to understand the makeup of the traffic heading out to the internet.  In transparent mode only http, wmt(1) and real(1) requests are sent to the CE.  While in proxy mode ftp(2) and https(3) can be sent to the cache as well as http, wmt(4) and real(4).  A traffic analyzer is an invaluable tool in this situation.  Ports used for the protocols mentioned are as follows.  These are the default port and can be changed.

http tcp 80 
https tcp 443 
ftp tcp 20 and 21 
wmt tcp 1755 or udp 1755 or http or multicast 
real rtsp 554

(1)  Only if configured as a WCCP service.

(2)  This only applies when the ftp session is down from within a browser or application that has the ftp proxy set to the cache.

(3)  Although HTTPS (Secure) sessions are sent to the cache, they can not be cache and are only tunneled through.

(4)  The proxy setting needs to be set within the Windows Media Player or the Real Player.  Please consult the user's guide for information  on how to set these.

The methodology for calculation of savings using interface counters is as follows:

  1. Without caching turned on clear the interface counters for the connection to the internet (clear counters is the command for Cisco IOS).

  2. Wait for a 2 average days and note down the highlighted counter values below.  Note the time that the counters were running for.

  3. Turn your caching on, whether it be proxy or transparent caching,. You need to wait for the cache to populate. This should be about 3 days depending on load.  Savings should been seen after a few hours, but three days will give you a good base line.

  4. Clear the interface counters on the connection to the internet again.

  5. With the caching turned on wait the same amount of time as with caching turned off.

  6. Note the interface byte counters again.

  7. The difference is your bandwidth savings.  This will be a different percentage compared to the sh stat http saving due to the router interface seeing all traffic while the cache only sees the protocols that are going to be cached.

Note: The below stats are from a router that is doing only http and hence the good figures.  On a production router this would be far less.

Note:  Show interface without caching.

Serial0/0 is up, line protocol is up 
  Hardware is PowerQUICC Serial 
  Internet address is 10.64.21.10/30 
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 128 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, 
     reliability 255/255, txload 59/255, rxload 194/255 
  Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set 
  Keepalive set (10 sec) 
  Last input 00:00:00, output 00:00:00, output hang never 
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters 00:06:52 
  Input queue: 4/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 6 
  Queueing strategy: weighted fair 
  Output queue: 0/1000/64/6 (size/max total/threshold/drops) 
     Conversations  0/32/32 (active/max active/max total) 
     Reserved Conversations 0/0 (allocated/max allocated) 
     Available Bandwidth 96 kilobits/sec 
  5 minute input rate 177000 bits/sec, 47 packets/sec 
  5 minute output rate 30000 bits/sec, 44 packets/sec 
     14218 packets input, 8743319 bytes, 0 no buffer 
     Received 42 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles 
     0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort 
     13019 packets output, 1113797 bytes, 0 underruns 
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 0 interface resets 
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out 
     0 carrier transitions 
     DCD=up  DSR=up  DTR=up  RTS=up  CTS=up

Note:  Show interface with caching turned on.

Serial0/0 is up, line protocol is up 
  Hardware is PowerQUICC Serial 
  Internet address is 10.64.21.10/30 
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 128 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, 
     reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255 
  Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set 
  Keepalive set (10 sec) 
  Last input 00:00:06, output 00:00:07, output hang never 
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters 00:17:33 
  Input queue: 0/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0 
  Queueing strategy: weighted fair 
  Output queue: 0/1000/64/0 (size/max total/threshold/drops) 
     Conversations  0/11/32 (active/max active/max total) 
     Reserved Conversations 0/0 (allocated/max allocated) 
     Available Bandwidth 96 kilobits/sec 
  5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec 
  5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec 
     7503 packets input, 5408948 bytes, 0 no buffer 
     Received 105 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles 
     0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort 
     5723 packets output, 497401 bytes, 0 underruns 
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 0 interface resets 
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out 
     0 carrier transitions 
     DCD=up  DSR=up  DTR=up  RTS=up  CTS=up

Explanation of the Show Statistics Commands

Show statistics http savings

cache-1#show statistics http savings 
                         Statistics - Savings 
                        Requests                          Bytes 
         ----------------------------------------------------------- 
  Total:                  663699                     5369304364 
   Hits:                  261820                      583380690 
   Miss:                  401782                     4612002188 
Savings:                    39.4 %                         10.9 % 

The percentages are the figures that give you the best indication.  As you can see from the above output, we have requests savings of 39.4% and byte savings of 10%.  This is within the expected range of savings.

Show statistics ftp

cache-1#show statistics ftp 

FTP Statistics 
-------------- 

FTP requests Received = 6 

FTP Hits 
                                 Requests Percentage 
 Number of hits =                       3       50.0 % 
          Bytes =                54171214       50.0 % 

FTP Misses 
                                 Requests Percentage 
 Number of misses =                     3       50.0 % 
            Bytes =              54171214       50.0 % 

 Requests sent to Outgoing Proxy    = 0 
 Requests sent to origin ftp server = 3 

FTP error count = 0

Show statistics wmt savings

cache-1#show statistics wmt savings 
Unicast Savings Statistics 
========================== 
Total bytes saved: 15271392 
-------------------------- 
                                         Total       % of Total Bytes 
                                                            Saved 
                              -------------------------------------------- 
By Pre-positioned content:                    0           0.00% 
        By Live-splitting:             11770875          77.08% 
             By Cache-hit:              3500517          22.92% 

                                         Total         % of Total 
                                                  Live Outgoing Bytes 
                              -------------------------------------------- 
Live Splitting 
-------------- 
           Incoming bytes:             26367513          69.14% 
           Outgoing bytes:             38138388         100.00% 
              Bytes saved:             11770875          30.86% 

                                         Total       % of Bytes Cache 
                                                           Total 
                              -------------------------------------------- 
Caching 
------- 
         Bytes cache-miss:             10761747          75.46% 
          Bytes cache-hit:              3500517          24.54% 
        Bytes cache-total:             14262264         100.00% 

     Bytes cache-bypassed:                    0 

                                         Total         % of Req Cache 
                                                           Total 
                              -------------------------------------------- 

Cacheable requests 
------------------ 
           Req cache-miss:                    1          16.67% 
            Req cache-hit:                    1          16.67% 
    Req cache-partial-hit:                    4          66.67% 
          Req cache-total:                    6         100.00% 

       Req cache-bypassed:                    0 

Objects not cached 
------------------ 
           Cache bypassed:                    0 
          Exceed max-size:                    0

Show statistics mediacache real savings

ce-7320-cache#show statistics mediacache real savings 
             Media Cache Statistics - Savings 
                        Requests                          Bytes 
         ----------------------------------------------------------- 
  Total:                       0                              0 
   Hits:                       0                              0 
   Miss:                       0                              0 
Savings:                     0.0 %                          0.0 % 

Related Information



Updated: Jan 30, 2006 Document ID: 21974