CSS 11154 - To upgrade or wait?

[Tommer Catlin]

What would be my compelling reasons to upgrade to a newer box?

- It looks like 802.1Q is more intigrated into the newer WebNS software now. 6.10 is my current, 7.20 is now the newest.

- 7.20 will not run on the 11154 because of the memory limitations? (128 megs vs. 256 megs)

- Will I get faster performance overall? I do not have mass loads of traffic, but between 25-35+ percent load. Some SSL. Many remote locations throughout the world that complain about Webpage performance. Will Caching improve the deliverance of web traffic better in a newer box?

- yes, I know.. the life cycle phase has kicked in since December 2004 for SmartNet on these older boxes.

Any other tips, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!

[Gilles Dufour]

7.x version are for CSS11500.

These versions will not run on CSS1115x or css1105x.

The latest version is 7.50 for the CSS11500 and 6.10 for css11000

trunking is supported on FE and GE ports for the CSS11500 and only the GE ports for the CSS11000.

This is a hardware limitation.

If you get performance complains, you should better investigate the reasons before changing anything.

Try to collect statistics and identify if this is a BW issue on your links, or if the CSS is overloaded, or if the servers are overloaded.

Gilles.

[jfoerster]

HI,

on which part of the webtraffic do they complain? On the http part or the https part.

Caching might be a solution but as Gilles wrote collect some statistics and check if the delay/latency between the remote locations is not a potential source of the performance problem.

Kind Regards,

Joerg

[Tommer Catlin]

I think the slowness is actually do to how everything is setup. Even onsite, for for example, it takes 15 seconds to pull up a page internally. (not really, but just placement numbers) During Dial-up or remote places such as India, it could take 30 seconds to pull up that page.

My guess is that the size of the page going through is 100k (example) and there is no way to change that. But we could control it will Compression when it leaves the CSS. The developers can't change the back end, so we look at the front end for better performance. Now, does the 11154 do any compression? If I upgrade to a 1150x.. what kind of compression could I look for. 25% - 50% compression less/more?

Thanks everyone! Love the Cisco Forums!

[jfoerster]

HI,

I assume that you mean compressing jpgs, gifs etc to be not that big in your post.

This can not be accomplished by any CSS as the CSS is "only" a loadbalancer.

Have you tested following the performance:

1) just infront of the CSS requesting the page via the VIP

2) directly requesting the page from the webserver

Could you please figure out what the real throughput is?

TIA.

Kind regards,

Joerg

[Tommer Catlin]

So from what I see, Cisco has not improved too much on the CSS platform. They have intigrated SSL into the 11500 series and improved caching (not compression, my mistake). But when it comes to any type of compression, you are saying that no CSS switch will do this. For instance, I am trying to compare the F5 BigIP, where it does everything the CSS does, and will do compression.

Basically, since I am load balancing my Web Servers, creating failover for the firewalls, VIP is enabled, there is not much do this then? (other than what the script may say) Correct?

[Gilles Dufour]

The CSS will do compression in a future release [AUG/SEPT].

Gilles.

[Tommer Catlin]

Thank you very much! I was wondering when this would come out.

Cheers!

Tommer

[jfoerster]

HI Gilles,

this is great news.

Is there more information availble in regards of compression like is a new module needed and so on?

Btw will the compression be available for the CSM/CSM-S too?

Looking forward to your reply.

Kind Regards,

Joerg

[Gilles Dufour]

Joerg,

this function will require the new SSL module and could exist on the current SSL module with lower performance.

This is not yet decided.

For the CSM I don't have the answer.

Gilles.