Documentation :: Documentation :: TOFFEE - WAN Optimization

I started working on the new TOFFEE project (which is the fork of my earlier TrafficSqueezer open-source project) starting from 1st January 2016 onwards. Ever since I was busy in research and altering certain old features so that it is more minimal than TrafficSqueezer, a more focused agenda, deliver refined code and a broader vision. I have lined up more things to follow in the upcoming months. I want to focus about all aspects of WAN communication technologies not just on core WAN Optimization research and technology.

When you build a WAN Optimization device with TOFFEE the entire packet processing (data optimization) takes place in software layer or in other words more precisely Operating System kernel space. However if you have any compression or encryption hardware accelerator hardware card the parts of the TOFFEE packet processing modules can be offloaded to hardware layer and thus improving its efficiency.

Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) is a new innovative way to provide optimal application performance by redefining branch office networking. Unlike traditional expensive private WAN connection technologies such as MPLS, etc., SD-WAN delivers increased network performance and cost reduction. SD-WAN solution decouple network software services from the underlying hardware via software abstraction.

WAN Network data can be optimized at various levels depending upon the network applications, protocols, topology and use-cases. So the amount of data you can optimize will depend on the strategy you choose to optimize. Such as: Network Packet level optimization, Session level optimization, File level optimization, etc.

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.

Timelapse Screen Capture of TOFFEE-DataCenter Network Acceleration - with new RRDtool graph support

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

You can build a basic TOFFEE WAN Optimization hardware completely in software layer (i.e its networking data-plane and control-plane). And if you are a product manufacturer you can make commercial WAN Optimization products with TOFFEE with software layer alone. And if you choose to improve its performance, you can use any third-party PCIe Compression Accelerator cards.

Today I got a feature request from Jonathan Withers. Jonathan is from a company called MultiWave Australia. He said he is able to get the TOFFEE-Mocha Raspberry Pi setup up and with that he is able to emulate geostationary satellite link. But he requested me is there a way to extend the constant packet delay from 40mS to 500mS. So as a part of his request I supported the same in the current ongoing development version of TOFFEE-Mocha.

TOFFEE is an open-source WAN Optimization (Network Performance Optimization) software which can be used to optimize your critical networks.

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.