The Warp 2063 solution requires a plug-in for the Web server. Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) 5.0 on Windows 2000, Apache 1.3.12 on FreeBSD 4.2 and above, and Netscape 4.x on Solaris 2.7 or higher are supported. Warp Solutions says it plans to offer support for Apache 1.3.12 on Red Hat Linux 7.1 in version 1.2, due in February, and plans to offer support for iPlanet 6.0 on both the Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris platforms in a later release.

The Rules Editor application is included for easy creation of caching rules that control the TTL (time to live) and creation of invalidation rules for individual dynamic objects. The rules editor is a Java-based application requiring JRE (Java Runtime Engine) 1.3.1. Distribution of the JRE is included for Linux- and Windows-based platforms.

No real-time reporting of Warp 2063 performance statistics or SNMP-based monitoring of the device is available in this release; both are slated for the 1.2 release. Also lacking is support for failover, which Warp plans to have available in the 1.2 release as well. As it is now, if the device fails, traffic is redirected to the application servers.

At $80,000 per unit, the Warp 2063 is a bit pricey considering its lack of monitoring capabilities and failover features. If you're desperately in need of a performance boost, this may be a good solution, but you have to be willing to pay the price. If you purchase before the 1.2 release, you also snag a support contract (at 18 percent of the product price), and you'll get the 1.x.x upgrades (not 2.x, though) free. New revisions may require a hardware swap as well as upgraded software.

Warp Speed Ahead

I tested version 1.1 of the Warp 2063 in our Real-World Labs® in Green Bay, Wis. Installation and configuration are straightforward. However, specific actions must be taken in the correct order, so plan ahead and read the manual.

The first order of business is configuring the Warp 2063 hardware, a job that requires only a few changes via a serial console, then setting the basic network information. You're now ready to move on. All other configuration is performed via a Web-based GUI; no CLI (command-line interface) is available for configuration of options other than basic networking and enabling the caching options for Web servers or databases.

After configuring the hardware, you have to configure the cache-cleaning invalidation method and your choice of access time or hits on a rule-by-rule basis. You also must add supported application servers and associated ports to the device. I added an IIS 5.0 server running on a Windows 2000 machine and serving up an ASP-based auction application.

Next up is updating the caching rules. This requires installation of the Rules Editor application unless you'd prefer to write the lengthy XML (Extensible Markup Language)-based configuration file by hand. The documentation for this is clear, and it is a certainly option if you're so inclined and want to practice you typing skills.

The Rules Editor is easy to follow. Caching rules tell how long to keep a dynamic object in the cache and offer detailed configuration options, which means objects can be cached based not only on URL but also on parameters and values tied to those parameters. Post, get and put methods are supported. Two types of rules are used for invalidation: a Web event rule and an invalidation event rule, either of which can force the device to refresh its content as well.

The Warp 2063 also lets you rewrite content based on rules. This gives you the ability, for example, to rewrite links in pages based on parameters passed to the original page, such as rewriting a user name within subsequent pages with the value of a login name passed to a login page.

Caching rules can include arguments. You can specify whether arguments are present, or that you DontCare and just want to cache the base URL. Using the DontCare option, I added rules to cache several pages for a maximum of 200 seconds regardless of parameters, and I saved the file. Then I had to upload the file via the Web-based GUI to the device.

Vendor Information Warp 2063, $80,000. Available: Now. Warp Solutions, (877) 688-WARP, (212) 962-9277; fax (212) 962-4646. www.warpsolutions.com

The last step in the setup is to install the Web server plug-in. When I did this, the installation process went flawlessly, but the requirement that a configuration file be hand-edited after installation threw me for a loop. You must edit the plug-in's configuration file to point to the Warp 2063 hardware device.

Engage!

Once the system was configured, I started up Caw Networks' WebAvalanche and began to test the performance of the Warp 2063. Each simulated user sent a series of four requests to the Web site, emulating a user accessing the site, viewing an item, then placing a bid on the item. In the baseline tests I had conducted without the Warp, simulating up to 2,000 HTTP gets per second on the same set of actions resulted in an average time to first byte of 2,111 ms, average server processing time of 2,110 ms and an average total response time of 6,807 ms. When the Warp 2063 was added to the mix, the average time to first byte dropped to 583 ms, average server processing time dropped to 579 ms and the average total response time plummeted to 1992 ms. Impressive results indeed, even over gigabit.

CPU utilization on the Microsoft Windows 2000 machine dropped from an average of 40 percent during the baseline tests to an average of less than 5 percent. Spikes of up to 20 percent occurred about every 200 seconds, which happened to be the time specified for the objects to be invalidated and refreshed from the origin server.

The Warp 2063 performed as advertised, off-loading server processing and decreasing response times for dynamically generated content. I'll hold my endorsement of the platform until the 1.2 release, however. Failover and monitoring are necessary features in today's high-availability world.