CCDA and CCDP Flash Cards: Content Networking

Content Networking

As a designer, content networking technologies allows you to intelligently distribute content throughout the network, thereby reducing WAN bandwidth requirements. For example, a user could open a web browser and point to a particular site. A content networking component, called a "cache engine," might already have that site's content stored locally. Therefore, the cache engine satisfies the user's web request locally, without burdening the WAN.

The flash cards in this section challenge you to recall the components of the Cisco content networking solution and the functions of these components. The networking components all have an appropriate place and use within a network. You are therefore required to identify where to deploy various content networking components. Finally, you must identify appropriate content networking components to use for specific types of content (such as web, e-commerce, or streaming media).

1. List the five components of the Cisco content networking solution.

The Cisco content networking solution contains the following components:

1. Content caching

2. Content switching

3. Content routing

4. Content distribution and management

5. Intelligent network services

2. Describe the benefit of content switching in a content networking design.

Content switching load balances requests across multiple content engines or servers that contain one content agent or server. As a result, content switching contributes to fault tolerance.

3. What benefit does the Cisco Content Distribution Manager (CDM) offer?

The Cisco Content Distribution Manager (CDM) intelligently pushes content to geographically dispersed content engines. These content engines then serve up the content to local clients, thus reducing bandwidth demands on the WAN.

4. In the Cisco content networking solution, how does transparent caching differ from proxy caching?

Transparent caching dynamically intercepts requests directed outside of the network and redirects those requests to a local content engine. However, proxy caching requires that a user's application (such as a browser) point directly to the content engine.

5. What content networking component uses Self-Organizing Distributed Architecture (SODA)?

The Cisco Content Distribution Manager (CDM) uses the SODA to keep track of what content is located on which content engine.

6. You are using content networking for web- caching purposes. Where should you place content engines?

Content engines should be strategically placed to prevent unnecessary WAN access. For example, remote offices are often appropriate locations for content engines because content engines allow much of the content to be served up locally.