DOCUMENTATION 》 IP Header Compression in WAN Links and TOFFEE-DataCenter WAN Optimization

TOFFEE-Butterscotch a TOFFEE for Home/SOHO Internet/WAN bandwidth

If you want to deploy TOFFEE along with a web-proxy cache (such as Squid Proxy) you can deploy the same as shown below. TOFFEE does not cache files. TOFFEE does packet level network optimization. So if you want caching your web content you can use transparent mode web-proxy cache intercepting your WAN links. A web-proxy may reduce amount of data being processed (optimized) within these TOFFEE devices and so reduce the CPU overheads and improve its performance.

TOFFEE-Butterscotch Documentation :: TOFFEE-Butterscotch-1.0.11-rpi2-23-nov-2016

Here is my first software development update of TOFFEE-Butterscotch. In my first TOFFEE-Butterscotch news update I have introduced about TOFFEE-Butterscotch research, project specifications, use-cases, etc. Introducing TOFFEE-Butterscotch Alerts: These are simple packet counters which corresponds to the filter type. For example if the incoming TCP-SYN packets are blocked then its corresponding alert counter will increment whenever such a packet arrives and gets filtered (dropped).

Here is a step-by-step DIY to build your own Intel based Mini PC WAN Optimization Device with TOFFEE. I chose this below Intel Celeron Mini PC since it is fan-less aluminium case and as well it has 2 dedicated inbuilt Gigabit Ethernet ports. You can use one for LAN Network and one for WAN Network.

TrafficSqueezer is an open-source WAN Optimization project. TrafficSqueezer is mainly a research project which is started around mid-2006. It is initially started as a research (or prototype) code even before it is officially registered in Sourceforge.net. But this code is just primitive user-space raw socket modules. This is later refined and a pre-alpha version is created. Followed by which Alpha release. This prototype code is moved from user-space to Linux Kernel (Kernel Space) and then the journey begin in terms of making a serious WAN Optimization solution. Once the pre-beta and beta releases are complete the mainstream series is started.

Here is a list of TOFFEE-DataCenter features supported. TOFFEE-DataCenter currently supports some of the important features such as loss-less network data compression, Packet Deduplication (protocols/applications supported), Application Acceleration, TCP Acceleration, dynamic MTU optimization, data packaging, hardware offload support, etc.

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.

TOFFEE TOFFEE Data-Center is specifically meant for Data Center, Cluster Computing, HPC applications. TOFFEE is built in Linux Kernel core. This makes it inflexible to adapt according to the hardware configuration. It does sequential packet processing and does not scale up well in large multi-core CPU based systems (such as Intel Xeon servers, Core i7 Extreme Desktop systems,etc). Apart from this since it is kernel based, if there is an issue in kernel, it may crash entire system. This becomes a challenge for any carrier grade equipment (CGE) hardware build.