Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect
This chapter provides an overview of Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect, and describes the hardware requirements for vWAAS with Akamai Connect, including how to upgrade vWAAS memory and disk for the Akamai Cache Engine (CE).
This chapter contains the following sections:
About Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect
Cisco IWAN (Intelligent WAN) --- The Akamai Connect feature integrates an HTTP object cache inside Cisco WAAS. This allows WAAS to cache any HTTP content whether it is delivered via your internal corporate network, direct from the Internet, or from Akamai’s Intelligent Platform. For more information, see the “Configuring Application Acceleration” chapter, section “Akamai Connect and WAAS,” of the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide.
Supported Platforms for Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect
Table 9-1 shows supported vWAAS models for Akamai caching up to 6,000 connections. Table 9-2 shows supported vWAAS models for Akamai caching beyond 6,000 connections, and disk and memory requirements for Akamai caching beyond 6,000 connections
Table 9-1 Supported vWAAS Models for Akamai Caching up to 6,000 Connections
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|
|
|
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vWAAS-150 |
ISR-G2 and ISR-G3 |
WAVE-294 |
SM-700 |
vWAAS-200 |
ISR-WAAS-750 (ISR-4451, ISR-4431, ISR-4351, ISR-4331, ISR-4321) |
WAVE-594 |
SM-900 |
vWAAS-750 |
ISR-WAAS-1300 (ISR-4451, ISR-4431) |
WAVE-694 |
SM-710 |
vWAAS-1300 |
ISR-WAAS-2500 (ISR-4451) |
|
SM-910 |
vWAAS-2500 |
|
|
|
vWAAS-6000 |
|
Table 9-2 Supported vWAAS Models and Memory/Disk Requirements for Akamai Connect beyond 6,000 Connections
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Total HTTP
Object Cache Connections (K)
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Cache Engine Cache Disk (GB)
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Additional Resource to be Added
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vWAAS-12000 |
12 |
750 |
6GB RAM, 750 GB disk |
vWAAS-50000 |
50 |
850 |
850 GB disk |
Note For vWAAS with WAAS Version 6.2.x, 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.
Table 9-3 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 Table 9-3 is dependent on the hardware module on which WAAS is running.
Table 9-3 Licenses for Cisco IWAN with Akamai Connect with vWAAS
Cisco IWAN with Akamai Connect License
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Supported Platforms
(vWAAS platforms in bolded text)
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SL-1300-AKC |
Akamai Connect license for up to 1300 WAAS connections |
- ISR-2900/ISR-3900 and one of the following:
– vWAAS-1300 or lower (UCS-E)
- ISR-4451, ISR-4431, ISR-4351, ISR-4331:
– vWAAS-2500 or lower
– vWAAS-1300 or lower
|
SL-2500-AKC |
Akamai Connect license for up to 2500 WAAS connections |
- ISR-2900/ISR-3900 and one of the following:
– vWAAS-2500 or lower (UCS-E)
– vWAAS-2500 or lower
– vWAAS-2500 or lower
|
SL-6000-AKC |
Akamai Connect license for up to 6000 WAAS connections |
- ISR-2900/ISR-3900 and one of the following:
– vWAAS-6000 or lower (UCS-E)
– vWAAS-6000 or lower
|
Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect Hardware Requirements
Table 9-4 shows the hardware requirements for Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) E-Series and ISR-WAAS (Integrated Services Router-WAAS) for 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 Chapter 5, “Cisco vWAAS on Microsoft Hyper-V”.
Table 9-4 Hardware Requirements for vWAAS with Akamai Connect
Cisco vWAAS or WAAS Model
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Memory Required for vWAAS with Akamai Connect
|
Disk Required for vWAAS with Akamai Connect
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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 |
Note Table 9-7 shows the WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements. Table 9-8 shows the WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Cache Disk Requirements.
Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk for Akamai Connect
This section has the following information on upgrading upgrade memory and disk to use the Akamai Cache Engine:
Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk with WAAS v5.4.1x through v6.1.1x
If you are running vWAAS with WAAS Version 6.1.1x, the Akamai disk is added by default; you do not need to use the following upgrade memory and disk procedure to use the Akamai Connect feature with vWAAS.
Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk with WAAS Version Earlier than v5.4.1
If you running vWAAS with a WAAS version earlier than Version 5.4.1, and are using an ESXi version lower than Version 5.0, and want to upgrade to WAAS v5.4.1, v5.5.1, or v6.1.1, use the following update memory and disk procedure to use the Akamai Connect feature with vWAAS.
Before using this procedure, note the upgrade paths for WAAS Version 6.2.3 shown in Table 9-5. For complete upgrade instructions, see the Release Note for Cisco Wide Area Application Services.
Table 9-5 Upgrade Paths for WAAS Version 6.2.3
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5.5.3 and later |
- Upgrade directly to 6.2.3
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- Upgrade directly to 6.2.3
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4.3.x through 5.5.1 |
1. Upgrade to 5.5.3, 5.5.5x (5.5.5, 5.5.5a), or 5.5.7 2. Upgrade to 6.2.3 |
1. Upgrade to 5.5.3 or 5.5.5x 2. Upgrade to 6.2.3 |
Step 1 Power off the vWAAS.
Step 2 Right-click the vWAAS and choose Editing Settings....
Step 3 ChooseAdd....
Step 4 At the Add Hardware dialog box, choose Hard Disk. Click Next.
Step 5 At the Select a Disk dialog box, choose Create a new virtual disk. Click Next.
Step 6 At the Create a Disk dialog box:
- At the Capacity dropdown lists, enter the size of the new disk.
- At Disk Provisioning, choose Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed.
- At Location, choose Store with the virtual machine.
- Click Next.
Step 7 At the Advanced Options dialog box:
- At the Virtual Device Node dropdown list, choose SCSI (0:2).
- At Mode, choose Persistent.
- Click Next.
Step 8 At 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.
Step 10 The screen displays the status message New hard Disk (adding). Click OK.
Step 11 Wait until the Recent Tasks screen shows Reconfigure Virtual machine task as Completed. Power on.
Step 12 To verify the new disk, display the current hardware listing with Virtual Machine Properties > Hardware.
Upgrading vWAAS Memory and Disk for vWAAS-12000 with ESXi
Caution
When the vWAAS-12000 model is deployed, the RAM size is 12 GB and the /local/local1 directory size is 15 GB. When you enable Akamai Connect for vWAAS, you need to increase the RAM to 18 GB. This procedure alters the calculation of the local1 directory size for the vWAAS-12000, because the expected size would be 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 can cause a serious problem during a kernel crash in the vWAAS-12000, because the vmcore file would then be larger than what could be stored in the local1 directory.
To avoid the scenario described in the above Caution note, and to safely upgrade vWAAS memory and disk for Akamai Connect for the vWAAS-12000, follow these steps:
Step 1 Power off the vWAAS VM (Virtual Manager).
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 least
6 GB.
Step 4 Power on the vWAAS VM.
Step 5 Check the alarms.
The filesystem_size_mism alarm will be raised:
Step 6 Use the disk delete-data-partitions command.
Note The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes cache files, including DRE cache files.
Step 7 Reload.
Note You must reload the device after using the disk delete-data-partitions command. 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 vWAAS-12000 with Hyper-V
Caution
When the vWAAS-12000 model is deployed, the RAM size is 12 GB and the /local/local1 directory size is 15 GB. When you enable Akamai Connect for vWAAS, you need to increase the RAM to 18 GB. This procedure alters the calculation of the local1 directory size for the vWAAS-12000, because the expected size would be 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 can cause a serious problem during a kernel crash in the vWAAS-12000, because the vmcore file would then be larger than what could be stored in the local1 directory.
To avoid the scenario described in the above Caution note, and to safely upgrade vWAAS memory and disk for Akamai Connect for the vWAAS-12000, follow these steps:
Step 1 Power off the vWAAS VM (Virtual Manager).
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 least
6 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 vWAAS VM.
Step 6 Check the alarms.
The filesystem_size_mism alarm will be raised:
Step 7 Use the disk delete-data-partitions command.
Note The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes cache files, including DRE cache files.
Step 8 Reload.
Note You must reload the device after using the disk delete-data-partitions command. 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
For vWAAS for WAAS Version 6.1.1 and later, vWAAS-150 on ISR-WAAS is supported for Akamai Connect (AKC). For WAAS Version 6.2.1 and later, vWAAS-150 is also supported for RHEL KVM and Microsoft Hyper-V (Chapter 5, “Cisco vWAAS on Microsoft Hyper-V” ).
Note Downgrading vWAAS-150 for RHEL KVM or for Microsoft Hyper-v to a version earlier than WAAS Version 6.2.1 is not supported.
Table 9-6 shows specifications for vWAAS-150.
Table 9-6 vWAAS-150 Profile
|
|
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 |
WAAS Central Manager and Cisco vWAAS-150
For the Cisco vWAAS-150 model, the WAAS Central Manager (CM) must be WAAS Version 6.2.1 or later, but supports mixed versions of device models (Version 6.2.1 and earlier). The WAAS CM must be a higher or equal version than associated devices.
Note The vWAAS-150 model is deployed for WAAS Version 6.1.1 only, so you cannot upgrade or downgrade the vWAAS-150 from Version 6.1.1.
Akamai Connect Cache Engine on Cisco Mid- and High-End Platforms
For WAAS Version 6.2.1 and later, the Akamai Connect Cache Engine (CE) is supported for scaling beyond 6,000 connections on the following platforms:
- WAVE-7541, WAVE-7571, and WAVE-8541
- vWAAS-12000 and vWAAS 50000
Scaling for these platforms is based on memory availability, scale performance, and the particular dynamic cache-size management feature. Table 9-7 shows the connections, total memory, and cache engine memory requirements for each of these platforms. Table 9-8 shows the connections, number of disks, and cache engine disks for each of these platforms.
The Akamai Connect CE connection-handling capacity is determined by the upper limit of memory that is given to the Akamai Connect CE at startup. The Akamai Connect CE will allocate memory as needed up to the upper limit; on approaching that limit, it will push back new connections. In case of overload, the connection will be optimized by HTTP-AO, without a caching benefit.
Note For vWAAS-12000 and vWAAS-50000, HTTP object cache will scale up to the platform TFO limit. To achieve this, you must augment the platform resources (CPU, RAM, and disk) during provisioning.
For vWAAS-12000, you must allocate at least 6 GB of additional RAM.
For vWAAS-12000 and vWAAS-50000, you must allocate Cache Engine cache disk resources. Cache disk requirements are shown in Table 9-8.
Table 9-7 WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements
|
HTTP Object Cache Connections
|
|
|
Memory Required for
Cache 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/ 14125 M/ 11565 M |
WAVE-8541 |
150 K/ 125 K/1 00 K |
2 |
96 GB |
38400 M/ 32000 M/ 25600 M |
Table 9-8 WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Cache Disk Requirements
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HTTP Object Cache Connections
|
|
|
|
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 |