Table of Contents

Product Overview

Product Line

Key Features and Benefits

Network-Integration
Content Access Control
Transparent Caching
Fault Tolerance and Fault Prevention
Scalable Clustering
Ease of Use

Specifications
Ordering Information

Cisco 500 Series — Cache Engine 570, 550, 505

Product Overview

Cisco`s next-generation Cache Engine 500 series solutions enable service providers and enterprises to accelerate content delivery, optimize WAN bandwidth utilization, and control access to content. The Cisco network caching solution is architected and optimized to work as a single caching system, pairing:

• Content-aware internetworking equipment, running Cisco IOS software`s industry-leading WCCPv2 protocol

• Network-integrated Cache Engine 500 series products that are managed and designed like networking products and can be transparently inserted into the network

Utilizing the intelligence of the network, the Cisco Cache Engine 500 series solutions localize traffic patterns by transparently caching frequently accessed content and then locally fulfilling successive requests for the same content. Because they are integrated into the network infrastructure, they have a low cost of ownership, enabling service providers and enterprises to cost-effectively deploy the Cisco network caching solution on a wide-scale basis and gain the benefits of caching throughout their network.

Product Line

The Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products are designed for different network environments:

• Cisco Cache Engine 570 — Midrange cache engine for small service provider POPs and medium-sized enterprises with WAN uplink bandwidth up to 22 Mbps

• Cisco Cache Engine 550 — Midrange cache engine for regional offices with WAN uplink bandwidth up to 11 Mbps

• Cisco Cache Engine 505 — Entry-level cache engine for small enterprise branch offices with T1/E1 uplinks

1. Requires a Cisco Storage Array for optimal performance

Key Features and Benefits

Network-Integration

Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products are network-integrated caching solutions because they are managed and designed like high-density networking products and are transparently inserted into the network. As a result, they have a low cost of ownership, enabling you to cost-effectively deploy your Cisco caching solution on a wide scale and gain the benefits of caching throughout your entire network.

• Designed like high-density networking products — Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products are high-density solutions with leading Performance per Rack Unit (RU), minimizing rack space costs. They are inherently designed and implemented as high-density networking products, rather than being standalone server platforms adapted as caches.

• Managed like networking products — Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products provide network management capabilities available on traditional Cisco networking gear such as Cisco IOS CLI and RADIUS support. This familiar management environment reduces operational costs because network administrators can leverage existing knowledge and tools.

• Transparently inserted into the network — Cisco Cache Engine 500 Series products are designed as network extensions, and therefore can be transparently inserted into the network. Cisco cache engines dynamically determine when to allow traffic to bypass them, proactively preventing overload and source IP authentication problems.

Content Access Control

The Cisco network caching solution, in conjunction with Websense Enterprise software, enables administrators to monitor, manage, and report on employee access to non-business and objectionable content. This high-performance content access control results in increased employee productivity, lower bandwidth usage and reduced legal liability.

Transparent Caching

Using WCCP, Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products can be deployed without requiring any changes to your existing network architecture, client browsers, or end servers. WCCP-enabled routers transparently redirect specified traffic to network caches. These cache engines can transparently receive traffic from one router or many routers, resulting in low deployment costs. Cisco cache engines can also operate in proxy mode so they are compatible with networks using proxy servers.

Fault Tolerance and Fault Prevention

The Cisco caching solution provides both cache fault tolerance and networking fault tolerance, eliminating any single point of failure. If a cache engine fails, traffic is automatically redistributed among other cache engine cluster members. If all cache engines in a cluster fail, traffic will no longer be redirected to them and the traffic is forwarded upstream.

The Cisco network caching solution enables a WCCP-enabled, Multigroup Hot-Standby Router Protocol (MHSRP) router pair to share a cache engine cluster, creating a fully redundant caching system. This is referred to as "WCCP multihoming." If the router fails, existing Cisco IOS fault tolerance and failsafe mechanisms are applied. For example, a hot-standby router could dynamically take over operations, redirecting Web requests to the cache cluster.

Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products can also dynamically adapt to prevent network or application-level problems associated with traditional caches. These cache engines dynamically determine when to allow traffic to bypass them, proactively preventing overload and source IP authentication problems.

Scalable Clustering

Network administrators can easily scale their cache engines to handle heavy traffic loads through the clustering capabilities in the Cisco WCCP protocol. Cisco clustering technology enables each cache member to work in parallel, resulting in linear scalability. Clustering cache engines greatly improves the scalability, redundancy, and availability of your caching solution. You can cluster up to 32 cache engines to scale to your desired capacity.

Ease of Use

The Cisco Cache Engine 500 series products are easy to use. They can be managed using traditional Cisco IOS management capabilities, allowing administrators to leverage Cisco IOS device management familiarity and accelerate learning curves. In addition, the devices can be managed via the cache engine`s intuitive Web GUI. Installing a cache engine is a simple process that requires very few commands.

Specifications

1. Requires a Cisco Storage Array for optimal performance/capacity. Cisco Storage Array provides 6x18GB = 108 GB of storage.

For more information on software for the Cisco Cache Engine 500 Series, visit Cisco Connection Online at

http://www.cisco.com/go/cache

Ordering Information

Posted: Wed Sep 27 05:13:17 PDT 2000
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