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Zeus Extensible TrafficManager (ZXTM) 3.1A Broadband-Testing Report

First published February 2005 (V1.0)Published by Broadband-TestingLa Calade, 11700 Moux, Aude, FranceTel : 33 (0)4 68 43 99 70Fax : 33 (0)4 68 43 99 71E-mail : info@broadband-testing.co.ukInternet : HTTP://www.broadband-testing.co.uk 2005 Broadband-TestingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, photocopied, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted without theexpress written consent of the authors.Please note that access to or use of this Report is conditioned on the following:1.The information in this Report is subject to change by Broadband-Testing without notice.2.The information in this Report, at publication date, is believed by Broadband-Testing to be accurate and reliable, but is not guaranteed. All useof and reliance on this Report are at your sole risk. Broadband-Testing is not liable or responsible for any damages, losses or expenses arisingfrom any error or omission in this Report.3.NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED ARE GIVEN BY Broadband-Testing. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING IMPLIEDWARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT ARE DISCLAIMED ANDEXCLUDED BY Broadband-Testing. IN NO EVENT SHALL Broadband-Testing BE LIABLE FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL ORINDIRECT DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFIT, REVENUE, DATA, COMPUTER PROGRAMS, OR OTHER ASSETS, EVEN IFADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.4.This Report does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation or guarantee of any of the products (hardware or software) tested or thehardware and software used in testing the products. The testing does not guarantee that there are no errors or defects in the products, or thatthe products will meet your expectations, requirements, needs or specifications, or that they will operate without interruption.5.This Report does not imply any endorsement, sponsorship, affiliation or verification by or with any companies mentioned in this report.6.All trademarks, service marks, and trade names used in this Report are the trademarks, service marks, and trade names of their respectiveowners, and no endorsement of, sponsorship of, affiliation with, or involvement in, any of the testing, this Report or Broadband-Testing isimplied, nor should it be inferred.

TABLE OF CONTENTSZXTM 3.1 REPORT – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. 1INTRODUCTION – LAYER 7: ONLY THE BEGINNING. 2ZXTM 3.1 – FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY OVERVIEW. 3What Exactly Is ZXTM? . 3Key Layer 7 Features . 4Features Previously Highlighted. 4New Feature Highlights . 5Management Interface. 5Rate Shaping . 6Client (Connection) Aggregation . 6Inbound And Outbound Event-Based Decisions. 7Content Masking. 8Request Buffering. 10Compression . 11ZXTM Feature Test: Sample Scenarios . 13Scenario 1: Avoiding The Dreaded “Page Not Found” Syndrome . 13Scenario 2: Transparently Repairing Broken Website Images . 13Scenario 3: Using Google As Your Own Site Search Engine . 14ZXTM 3.1 PERFORMANCE TESTS . 17Test Overview. 17Requests Per Second. 18Throughput . 19SSL . 19Compression . 21OVERALL SUMMARY. 22APPENDIX: THE TESTBED DETAILS. 23TABLE OF FIGURESFigure 1 – ZXTM Within The Backend Network . 4Figure 2 – The Revised ZXTM GUI . 5Figure 3 – Inbound and Outbound Event Control . 8Figure 4 – L7 Content Masking Example – Zeus Rival. 9Figure 5 – L7 Content Masking Example – ZXTM TrafficScript. 10Figure 6 – Request Buffering – WebSphere Example. 10Figure 7 – Making Intranet Server Available As Extranet . 14Figure 8 – Zeus.com Search Engine . 15Figure 9 – The SOAP Response . 16Figure 10 – The SOAP Response Formatted Into HTML . 16Figure 11 – Performance Chart: Requests Per Second . 18Figure 12 – Performance Chart: Throughput. 19Figure 13 – Performance Chart and Table: SSL Transactions Per Second . 20Figure 14 – Performance Chart and Table: Compression . 21Figure 15 – Spirent WebAvalanche 2500. 23Figure 16 – Creating A WebAvalanche Test . 24

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Broadband-Testing Zeus ZXTM 3.1 ReportZXTM 3.1 REPORT – EXECUTIVE SUMMARYWith ZXTM, Zeus is looking to enter the Layer 7 trafficmanagement market in a different way to that taken by the playersto date. Zeus has forcedly – and correctly – come to the Layer 7market from an intelligent software perspective, and at a verycompelling price:performance point.Intelligent traffic management is what ZXTM is all about. Therefore,in order to really make this a really flexible tool, Zeus has createdthe TrafficScript language to define rules with. This has thecapability to inspect all aspects of the incoming request, from thesource and destination port and IP address to the type and actualcontent of the traffic. TrafficScript also supports DTD and XSLTXML processing.ZXTM has a number of interesting and unique features. Theseinclude the “draining nodes” feature which lets you gracefully takeservers out of an active pool without cutting user connections.Another is the “Diagnose” feature which ensures that yourconfiguration is correct, before you deploy it.ZXTM has extensive redundancy and resilience built-in, whichexceeds the current standard for this product class. It hasdeveloped what it calls N M scalability where near infiniteredundancy and scalability is achieved. Moreover, adding anadditional ZXTM to a cluster is simple, as a new ZXTM isautomatically detected by the existing cluster and the configurationis automatically replicated. So this makes scalability very costeffective (you only have to buy one additional ZXTM if that’s all youneed), and very easy at the same time.Performance – measured across a range of metrics, in real-worldsituations, proved both good in class and excellent on aprice:performance basis. Zeus’ N M scalability suggests that thislevel of performance can continue to increase in direct relation tothe addition of further ZXTM servers. Due to the constraints of ourtest bed in this instance, we were unable to reach the limits of adual ZXTM configuration, but look out for a total scalability test inthe near future.Not only is ZXTM very competitive on a price:performance basis,but equally important here is that, despite this price advantage,ZXTM has class-leading features.Page 1

Broadband-Testing Zeus ZXTM 3.1 ReportINTRODUCTION – LAYER 7: ONLY THE BEGINNINGThere’s been a lot of talk over the years about what constitutes a Layer 7device.What it is not, is load-balancing. That is a Layer 4 application and a veryworthy one at that. But what is really required, in addition, is to be able tomanipulate any application data at L7 and talk directly to the applicationsand network services. Now we are talking about a revolutionary change innetworking, where it becomes a software technology, not one with a limitedlifespan courtesy of the hardware and available bandwidth technologies.This means that there are no physical limits to what you can do and whereyou can go. It creates a truly ubiquitous development platform which allowsthe network to be changed and developed constantly, without the samekind of impact there is now when making physical additions and changes.Hardware becomes a simple extension of the network logic. The intelligentnetwork takes it and manages it directly, in association with the applicationsand services running across it. It’s what at Broadband-Testing we’re calling“the future of networking” and I have personally spoken about thisdevelopment on panels and at seminars over the past 12 months and metwith a very positive – and interested – reaction from press and analystsalike. And getting these guys on your side is no bad thing So, from my perspective, we are talking about the START of the real L7product phenomenon, not the end. And we also need to look at who needsL7 technology. To date the products have been targeted almost exclusivelyat service providers, search engines, portals, carriers all the top-end,service-oriented guys. But at a (far) lower entry price, the world of mediumenterprise computing has many of these same requirements – serveroptimisation (TCP offload), application optimisation (compression etc), afundamental security (for example, Denial of Service attack) foundation andthe ability thereafter to manipulate data to optimise performance further.It’s all about getting a cost/sales model that gives this market a product atthe right price while still maintaining sufficient margins as the vendor tomake real money. We’re not talking about loss leader products here butmoney-making products in their own right. The Internet (i.e. direct salesacross ) is the perfect vehicle here, but how many of the existing L7product vendors can move down to this model and make a profit?Can Zeus? The answer should be “yes”. But can Zeus also play at the “topend” where a full feature set to rival F5s latest and greatest V9 offering issurely the minimum requirement? As a software-only offering it means itcan be married to whatever hardware you choose, within the bounds ofLinux and Unix support that is. It also offers effectively unlimited scaling –see later – so that heavy-duty clusters of its ZXTM traffic managementsoftware can be created to manage huge amounts of data.This, then, is the promise that Zeus makes with ZXTM. So can it deliver?Read on Page 2