Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Connected Cache
Is this product a free service?
Yes. Microsoft Connected Cache is a free service.
What will Microsoft Connected Cache do for me? How will it impact our customers?
As an ISP, your network can benefit from reduced load on your backbone and improve customer download experience for supported Microsoft static content. It will also help you save on CDN costs.
I already peer with Microsoft(8075). What benefit will I receive by adding Microsoft Connected Cache to my network?
Microsoft Connected Cache complements peering by offloading static content that is served off of multiple CDNs such as Akamai, Lumen, Edgecast. Static content such as OS updates, Apps, Software installs etc. can't be served via 8075. So, even if you're peering with Microsoft, you can benefit from installing Connected Cache.
Is there a non-disclosure agreement to sign?
No, a non-disclosure agreement isn't required.
What are the prerequisites and hardware requirements?
- Azure subscription
- Hardware to host Microsoft Connected Cache
- Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on a physical server or VM of your choice.
Note
The Microsoft Connected Cache is deployed and managed using Azure IoT Edge and Ubuntu 20.04 is an Azure IoT Edge Tier 1 operating system. Additionally, the Microsoft Connected Cache module is optimized for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
The following are recommended hardware configurations:
| Microsoft Connected Cache Machine Class | Scenario | Traffic Range | VM/Hardware Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edge | For smaller ISPs or remote sites part of a larger network. | < 5 Gbps Peak | VM Up to 8 cores Up to 16-GB memory 1 500 GB SSD |
| Metro POP | For ISPs, IXs, or Transit Providers serving a moderate amount of traffic in a network that might require one of more cache nodes. | 5 to 20 Gbps Peak | VM or hardware 16 cores* 32-GB memory 2 - 3 500-GB SSDs each |
| Data Center | For ISPs, IXs, or Transit Providers serving a large amount traffic daily and might require deployment of multiple cache nodes. | 20 to 40 Gbps Peak | Hardware, see sample spec below: 32 or more cores* 64 or more GB memory 4 - 6 500 - 1-TB SSDs** each |
*Requires systems (chipset, CPU, motherboard) with PCIe version 3, or higher.
**Drive speeds are important and to achieve higher egress, we recommend SSD NVMe in m.2 PCIe slot (version 4, or higher).
We have one customer who is able to achieve mid-30s Gbps egress rate using the following hardware specification:
- Dell PowerEdge R330
- 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40 GHz, total 32 core
- 48 GB, Micron Technology 18ASF1G72PDZ-2G1A1, Speed: 2133 MT/s
- 4 - Transcend SSD230s 1 TB SATA Drives
Intel Corporation Ethernet 10G 2P X520 Adapter (Link Aggregated)
Do I need to provide hardware BareMetal server or VM?
Microsoft Connected Cache is a software-only caching solution and requires you to provide your own server to host the software.
Can we use hard drives instead of SSDs?
We highly recommend using SSDs as Microsoft Connected Cache is a read intensive application. We also recommend using multiple drives to improve performance.
Do I need to manually enter the CIDR blocks? If I have multiple cache nodes, should I configure a subset of CIDR blocks to each cache node?
You can choose to route your traffic using manual CIDR blocks or BGP. If you have multiple Microsoft Connected Caches, you can allocate subsets of CIDR blocks to each cache node if you wish. However, since Microsoft Connected Cache has automatic load balancing, we recommend adding all of your traffic to all of your cache nodes.
Should I add any load balancing mechanism?
You don't need to add any load balancing. Our service takes care of routing traffic if you have multiple cache nodes serving the same CIDR blocks based on the reported health of the cache node.
How many Microsoft Connected Cache instances do I need? How do we set up if we support multiple countries or regions?
As stated in the recommended hardware table, the recommended configuration achieves near the maximum possible egress of 40 Gbps with a two-port link aggregated NIC and four cache drives. We have a feature coming soon that helps you estimate the number of cache nodes needed. If your ISP spans multiple countries or regions, you can set up separate cache nodes per country or region.
Where should we install Microsoft Connected Cache?
You are in control of your hardware and you can pick the location based on your traffic and end customers. You can choose the location where you have your routers or where you have dense traffic or any other parameters.
How long would a piece of content live within the Microsoft Connected Cache? Is content purged from the cache?
Once a request for said content is made, NGINX looks at the cache control headers from the original acquisition. If that content is expired, NGINX continues to serve the stale content while it's downloading the new content. We cache the content for 30 days. The content will be in the hot cache path (open handles and such) for 24 hrs, but will reside on disk for 30 days. The drive fills up and nginx will start to delete content based on its own algorithm, probably some combination of least recently used.
What content is cached by Microsoft Connected Cache?
For more information about content cached, see Delivery Optimization and Microsoft Connected Cache content endpoints - Windows Deployment.
Does Microsoft Connected Cache support Xbox or Teams content?
Currently, Microsoft Connected Cache doesn't support Xbox or Teams content. However, supporting Xbox content is of high priority, and we expect this feature soon. We'll let you know as soon as it becomes available!
Is IPv6 supported?
No, we don't currently support IPV6. We plan to support it in the future.
Is Microsoft Connected Cache stable and reliable?
We have already successfully onboarded ISPs in many countries and regions around the world and have received positive feedback! However, you can always start off with a portion of your CIDR blocks to test out the performance of Connected Cache before expanding to more customers.
How does Microsoft Connected Cache populate its content?
Microsoft Connected Cache is a cold cache warmed by client requests. The client requests content and that is what fills up the cache. There's no off-peak cache fill necessary. Microsoft Connected Cache will reach out to different CDN providers just like a client device would. The traffic flow from Microsoft Connected Cache will vary depending on how you currently transit to each of these CDN providers. The content can come from third party CDNs or from AFD.
What CDNs does Microsoft Connected Cache pull content from?
Microsoft relies on a dynamic mix of 1st and 3rd party CDN providers to ensure enough capacity, redundancy, and performance for the delivery of Microsoft served content. Though we don't provide lists of the CDN vendors we utilize as they can change without notice, our endpoints are public knowledge. If someone were to perform a series of DNS lookups against our endpoints (tlu.dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com for example), they would be able to determine which CDN or CDNs were in rotation at a given point in time:
$ dig +noall +answer tlu.dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com | grep -P "IN\tA"
c-0001.c-msedge.net. 20 IN A 13.107.4.50
$ whois 13.107.4.50|grep "Organization:"
Organization: Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)
I'm a network service provider and have downstream transit customers. If one of my downstream transit customers onboards to Microsoft Connected Cache, how does it affect my traffic?
If a downstream customer deploys a Microsoft Connected Cache node, the cache controller will prefer the downstream ASN when handling that ASN's traffic.
I signed up for Microsoft Connected Cache, but I'm not receiving the verification email. What should I do?
First, check that the email under the NOC role is correct in your PeeringDB page. If the email associated with NOC role is correct, search for an email from the sender "microsoft-noreply@microsoft.com" with the email subject - "Here's your Microsoft Connected Cache verification code" in your Spam folders. Still can't find it? Ensure that your email admin rules allow emails from the sender microsoft-noreply@microsoft.com.
I noticed I can set up BGP for routing. How does BGP routing work for Microsoft Connected Cache?
BGP routing can be set up as an automatic method of routing traffic. To learn more about how BGP is used with Microsoft Connected Cache, see BGP Routing.
I have an active Connected Cache, but I'm noticing I hit the message limit for my IoT Hub each day. Does this affect my Connected Cache performance and should I be concerned?
Even when the quota of 8k messages is hit, the Connected Cache functionality isn't affected. Your client devices continue to download content as normal. You also won't be charged above the 8k message limit, so you don't need to worry at all about getting a paid plan. Connected Cache will always be a free service. So if functionality isn't impacted, what is? Instead, messages about the configuration or edge deployment would be impacted. This means that if there was a request to update your Connected Cache and the daily quota was reached, your Connected Cache might not update. In that case, you would just need to wait for the next day to update. This is only a limitation of the early preview and isn't an issue during public preview.
What do I do if I need more support and have more questions even after reading this FAQ page?
For further support for Microsoft Connected Cache, visit Troubleshooting Issues for Microsoft Connected Cache for ISP (public preview).