

Traffic Server is finally here (Y's http proxy/cache server) - sstrudeau
http://www.ogre.com/node/320

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jbyers
I'm glad to see Yahoo put this project out in the open source world. What I'm
having a hard time with is understanding precisely where it fits after having
read through all the public docs. Despite the comparisons drawn on the intro
page, Traffic Server seems close to squid and varnish functionally, but really
only close to squid in actual implementation: a highly configurable split
ram/disk caching proxy. Varnish is quite a departure from this approach
(<http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/wiki/ArchitectNotes>), and nginx at its
core is not a caching proxy at all. This doesn't diminish its value as a
system that's served tremendous traffic volumes over the last decade, but I'd
love a more complete description of why I should choose TS over the
alternatives in caching and reverse proxy roles.

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chrisbolt
nginx does caching reverse proxying now, as of 0.7.48

<http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpProxyModule#proxy_cache>

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jbyers
It's been in for about five months and seems to be undergoing heavy
development. Like everything else nginx I'm sure it will be rock solid, but I
don't think it can be considered core yet.

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aristus
This is Inktomi's Traffic Server, resurrected and used for years in Yahoo's
internal caching system. Congrats to rtroll and everyone else!

~~~
SwellJoe
Note that Squid is _also_ heavily used in Yahoo's internal caching system. I
suppose there must be reasons for that.

But, this is certainly a good thing. Traffic Server was an extremely good
product in its heyday (my previous Squid-based company competed with Inktomi-
based products), and maybe an Open Source version will be good for the eco-
system in general. Varnish gets mentioned a lot as a super fast alternative to
Squid, but it has a very limited set of use cases compared to Squid.

~~~
blasdel
A fine pocketknife has a very limited set of use cases compared to a
Leatherman.

It also is actually good at a limited set of tasks, instead of just being
mediocre-to-terrible at %90 of everything some bureaucrat thought might be
useful 5+ years ago, all in a monolithic pile with awful configuration.

~~~
SwellJoe
I happen to love my Leatherman.

And, there are no bureaucrats involved in the development of Squid. The Squid
team are old friends of mine, and they are smart, competent developers working
with a much larger set of problems and compatibility issues in a much larger
codebase than most of us have to contend with, and they do a fine job of it.
As is shown by the market leading position of Squid; it is the most popular
Open Source web caching proxy server, by far.

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Tichy
How does it work for Comet style apps? I am not sure, but I think one would
need a proxy server that can keep a lot of connections open. Not sure if
classical proxy servers are designed to do that?

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rbranson
Awesome! Finally something that combines the best of Varnish and Squid.

