Aruba EdgeConnect: BOOST in Action!
In this article, we are going to cover the BOOST feature in
Action in our LAB setup. You can see this article extension to another article Aruba
SD-WAN: BOOST Feature. The earlier article on BOOST covered the technology
overview and here we are going to see the Action.
It’s going to be around the Network Memory component of the
Aruba BOOST feature. Which is to save bandwidth consumption using caching,
deduplication, and compression techniques. If you have not read the earlier
article, please do so to take full advantage of this one.
In any network especially when large files/data need to be
accessed by users frequently, we have seen the request comes from the end-users
and the same file is served to these users multiple times. I don’t see any harm
because this is for a client/server network model built. Servers are to serve
clients without complaint.
Let’s think about a scenario where multiple users in a remote branch, need a file [let’s say software patch] from the central server or to be more specific in a large banking setup a circular is released by Head Office and all users in all branches need to read.
Is it advisable to send the request to fetch data from a centralized update server and get the same file over the WAN? I see some of the issues – premium links are consumed unnecessarily for the same data, and during peak hours it may impact the performance of other critical applications [as it may overutilize the links].
What if only the first
request is served by a centralized server and all subsequent requests are
served locally – this improves the situation manifold. Here we are going to talk about how less traffic is sent over WAN for duplicate data requests.
Lab Setup
In this simple lab setup, we have two sites connected
through MPLS & Internet links. Workstation 1 is the FTP Server and
Workstation 2 is the client. We’ll be performing the FTP test between these two
workstations to see –
1.
What is the bandwidth consumption & the time
to transfer a file without BOOST?
2.
And then the BOOST speeds up the file transfer
Figure 1: LAB Setup
Figure 2 is the output from FTP server (Workstation 1). There is approx. 300 MB of a file (300_MB) that we’ll be transferring from Workstation 1 to Workstation 2. At present, there is no file available on this system. We’ll do the file transfer twice to see how much time it takes to transfer the same file from server to client without BOOST.
Figure 3:
FTP Client 300_MB file removed & doesn't exist
As per the output below from Workstation 2, file transfer is taking around 54 seconds without BOOST. But when the BOOST feature is enabled, the same file transfer took around 7 seconds.
Figure 4: File Transfer Time
Aruba Orchestrator confirms the level of optimization, using
the Flow Tab. It shows approx. 300 MB file over the WAN network is consuming around
5 MB.
Figure 5: Flow
Information
This concludes the demo part 1 where we demonstrated BOOST [Network
Memory] in action. It not only helps customers to save premium bandwidth for the
same data [patch/backup etc.] using the deduplication but also saves time for
remote users to get the information. This can be seen as a feature for
organizations to increase end-user productivity.
Hope you find this informative. Let’s connect soon for TCP
Acceleration another component of BOOST in Action!
Continue Reading...
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A Quick Intro - Aruba EC-10104 Appliance - The Network DNA
Aruba SD-WAN: BOOST Feature - The Network DNA
Aruba SD-WAN: Dynamic Path Control - The Network DNA
Aruba EdgeConnect: Path Conditioning - The Network DNA
Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise : An overview of Traffic Handling Features - The Network DNA
An Introduction to Aruba SD-WAN: Business Intent Overlays - The Network DNA
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