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 10-1 shows supported vWAAS models for Akamai caching up to 6,000 connections. Table 10-2 shows supported vWAAS models for Akamai caching beyond 6,000 connections, and disk and memory requirements for Akamai caching beyond 6,000 connections

Table 10-1 Supported vWAAS Models for Akamai Caching up to 6,000 Connections

Appliance
SM
vWAAS
ISR-WAAS

 

 

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 10-2 Supported vWAAS Models and Memory/Disk Requirements for Akamai Connect beyond 6,000 Connections

vWAAS Model
Total HTTP
Object Cache Connections (K)
Cache Engine Cache Disk (GB)
Additional Resource to be Added

vWAAS-12000

12

750

6GB RAM, 750 GB disk

vWAAS-50000

50

850

850 GB disk

note.gif

Noteblank.gif 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 10-3 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.gif

Noteblank.gif The actual number of connections for each Cisco IWAN with Akamai Connect License shown in Table 10-3 is dependent on the hardware module on which WAAS is running.


Table 10-3 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 1300 WAAS connections

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

blank.gif vWAAS-1300 or lower (UCS-E)

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

blank.gif vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • UCS server:

blank.gif vWAAS-1300 or lower

  • WAVE-594

SL-2500-AKC

Akamai Connect license for up to 2500 WAAS connections

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

blank.gif vWAAS-2500 or lower (UCS-E)

  • ISR-4451:

blank.gif vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • UCS server:

blank.gif vWAAS-2500 or lower

  • WAVE-694

SL-6000-AKC

Akamai Connect license for up to 6000 WAAS connections

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

blank.gif vWAAS-6000 or lower (UCS-E)

  • UCS server:

blank.gif vWAAS-6000 or lower

  • WAVE-694

Cisco vWAAS with Akamai Connect Hardware Requirements

Table 10-4 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.gif

Noteblank.gif 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 10-4 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

note.gif

Noteblank.gif Table 10-7 shows the WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements. Table 10-8 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 10-5. For complete upgrade instructions, see the Release Note for Cisco Wide Area Application Services.

Table 10-5 Upgrade Paths for WAAS Version 6.2.3

Current WAAS Version
WAAS CM Upgrade Path
WAAS Upgrade Path

5.5.3 and later

  • Upgrade directly to 6.2.3
  • Upgrade directly to 6.2.3

4.3.x through 5.5.1

1.blank.gif Upgrade to 5.5.3, 5.5.5x (5.5.5, 5.5.5a), or 5.5.7

2.blank.gif Upgrade to 6.2.3

1.blank.gif Upgrade to 5.5.3 or 5.5.5x

2.blank.gif Upgrade to 6.2.3


Step 1blank.gif Power off the vWAAS.

Step 2blank.gif Right-click the vWAAS and choose Editing Settings....

Step 3blank.gif ChooseAdd....

Step 4blank.gif At the Add Hardware dialog box, choose Hard Disk. Click Next.

Step 5blank.gif At the Select a Disk dialog box, choose Create a new virtual disk. Click Next.

Step 6blank.gif 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 7blank.gif At the Advanced Options dialog box:

    • At the Virtual Device Node dropdown list, choose SCSI (0:2).
    • At Mode, choose Persistent.
    • Click Next.

Step 8blank.gif 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 9blank.gif Click Finish.

Step 10blank.gif The screen displays the status message New hard Disk (adding). Click OK.

Step 11blank.gif Wait until the Recent Tasks screen shows Reconfigure Virtual machine task as Completed. Power on.

Step 12blank.gif 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

caut.gif

Caution blank.gif 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 1blank.gif Power off the vWAAS VM (Virtual Manager).

Step 2blank.gif Add an additional disk of the required size for your system.

Step 3blank.gif Increase the size of the RAM.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif To run Akamai Connect on vWAAS-12000, you must increase the size of the RAM by at least
6 GB.


Step 4blank.gif Power on the vWAAS VM.

Step 5blank.gif 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 6blank.gif Use the disk delete-data-partitions command.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes cache files, including DRE cache files.


Step 7blank.gif Reload.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif 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

caut.gif

Caution blank.gif 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 1blank.gif Power off the vWAAS VM (Virtual Manager).

Step 2blank.gif Add an additional disk of the required size for your system.

Step 3blank.gif Increase the size of the RAM.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif To run Akamai Connect on vWAAS-12000, you must increase the size of the RAM by at least
6 GB.


Step 4blank.gif 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 5blank.gif Power on the vWAAS VM.

Step 6blank.gif 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 7blank.gif Use the disk delete-data-partitions command.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif The disk delete-data-partitions command deletes cache files, including DRE cache files.


Step 8blank.gif Reload.

note.gif

Noteblank.gif 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.gif

Noteblank.gif 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 10-6 shows specifications for vWAAS-150.

Table 10-6 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

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.gif

Noteblank.gif 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 10-7 shows the connections, total memory, and cache engine memory requirements for each of these platforms. Table 10-8 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.gif

Noteblank.gif 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 10-8.


Table 10-7 WAAS Mid to High End Platform Cache Engine Memory Requirements

Cisco WAAS Platform
HTTP Object Cache Connections
CPU
Total Memory
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 10-8 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