DOCUMENTATION 》 TOFFEE (and TOFFEE-DataCenter) deployment with VPN devices

Here is my power-consumption measurements of various devices deployed within my home lab. I measured via my kill-a-watt sort of power-meter which is fairly reliable and accurate. I checked its accuracy with various standard load such as Philips LED laps and other constant power-consuming devices to make sure that the power-meter is precise.

VPN Networks may degrade network performance due to various packet processing overheads such as encryption and by adding extra network protocol header(s) (such as IPv4/IPv6, IPSec, etc). This may inflate near MTU sized packets and causes excessive packet fragmentation. Here are the few examples of packet processing involved in a VPN (or a VPN like) Tunnel. With TOFFEE you can optimize these packets even before they get processed on to a VPN device. TOFFEE optimizes packet contents (application payload and transport headers) so that these TOFFEE optimized packets when they get processed by VPN devices (or VPN software stack) they may never need further packet fragmentation. Here is a deployment scenario of TOFFEE with VPN devices.

I always wanted to do some real experiments and research on packet flow patterns from High-bandwidth to Low-bandwidth networks via networking devices. This is something can be analyzed via capturing Network stack buffer data and other parameters, bench-marking, and so on. But eventually the data-transfer nature and other aspects is often contaminated due to the underlying OS and the way Network stack is implemented. So to understand the nature of packet flow from Higher to Lower bandwidth and vice-versa such as Lower to higher bandwidth, I thought I experiment with various tools and things which physically we can observe this phenomena.

Raspberry Pi is often used as a single board computer for applications such as IoT, hobby projects, DIY, education aid, research and prototyping device. But apart from these applications Raspberry Pi can be used for real-world applications such as in making a full-fledged networking devices. Raspberry Pi is a single board ARM based hardware which is why it is also classified as ARM based SoC. Since it is ARM based it is highly efficient, tiny form-factor and lower in power consumption with moderate computational power. This will allow it to work several hours on emergency battery backup power supply such as low-cost domestic UPS and or some renewable energy source, which is a prerequisite for a typical networking device.

Now I supported and finished complete GUI support of these parameters so that you can configure, store, reboot and the same will restore upon reboot. Besides I complete the TOFFEE-Mocha Big-Picture page. The Big picture is an interface where you can find all the configuration (or settings) of the TOFFEE-Mocha. This is almost similar to CISCO device show all command but in graphical representation. Sometimes a network admin can also print the Big Picture page and paste it near to the device to refer its settings.

The TOFFEE Project :: TOFFEE-DataCenter :: Linux Open-Source WAN Optimization

I was doing some specific tests in my TOFFEE and TOFFEE-DataCenter (WAN optimization) scenarios such as variable upload and download speeds. And I was also doing some experiments with speedtest.net and I did some of these tests with TOFFEE-Mocha. I realized there is a case that I can introduce asymmetric constant delays so that you can get different download speed and a different upload speed. And in some cases much faster download speeds and relatively slower upload speeds.

Network MTU research and optimization of WAN Links

TOFFEE can be used to optimize expensive Wireless backhaul network infrastructure. TOFFEE can be deployed over existing slow or often outdated old backhaul networks too. This will leverage mobile ISPs and network service providers to reduce their bulk IT CapEx and OpEx Costs.