Cisco Wide Area Application Services Mobile [Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) Software]

Product Overview

Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) Mobile extends Cisco® WAAS Software application acceleration benefits to mobile employees who travel outside the branch office. Compared to corporate WAN and branch-office optimization, acceleration of mobile VPN connections over the public Internet brings new technical challenges:

• Quality of the network connection lower than the corporate WAN: Rather than using dedicated branch-to-corporate WAN leased lines, mobile users are using public Internet connections such as DSL, Wi-Fi, satellite, dialup, cable, and cellular. These connections have lower bandwidth, higher packet loss and latency, and additional challenges such as time-slicing delay in cellular environments;

• Small footprint on PC/Laptop: In contrast to branch-office users who can rely on a dedicated branch-office device for application acceleration, mobile users have to share laptop or PC computing resources and the TCP software stack with numerous of other PC applications;

• Support cost and manageability concerns: The open environment of a Windows PC, in contrast to the controlled environment of an appliance, has a very different class of stability and interoperability requirements, with numerous software applications running on the PC: a variety of operating systems, browser versions, end point security applications, VPN client software and a wide range of business applications.

Features and Benefits

To uniquely address these challenges, Cisco WAAS Mobile offers industry-leading performance under the most challenging network connectivity conditions, requires smallest PC footprint, and requires the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) normally associated with installation of client software on mass-user PCs.

Industry-Leading Acceleration Performance Under the Most Challenging Network Conditions

Cisco WAAS Mobile provides highest application throughput improvement under the most challenging network conditions with very high latency and packet loss (Figure 1). Benchmark testing showed that the solution provides substantial end-user throughput improvements, which results in 11 times (11X) faster application response time when encountering 10 percent packet loss. By contrast, rather than improving throughput, other alternatives drop application throughput as substantially as native WAN.

Figure 1. Industry-leading Application Throughput Improvement

Cisco WAAS Mobile typically provides 2 to 5X acceleration on initial downloads, and 20X or greater acceleration on subsequent transfers for any TCP-based applications. In mobile environments, if first-download performance is bad, end users are likely to stop using the applications altogether. Cisco WAAS Mobile delivers excellent first-download performance, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Industry-Leading File Download Performance (1st Download)

Cisco WAAS Mobile achieves industry-leading performance by extending Cisco WAAS acceleration technologies including the following:

• Advanced data transfer compression: Cisco WAAS Mobile maintains a persistent and bi-directional history of data on both the mobile PC and the Cisco WAAS Mobile server. This history can be used in current and future transfers, across different VPN sessions or even after a reboot, to minimize bandwidth consumption and improve performance. In addition, instead of using a single algorithm for all file types, Cisco WAAS Mobile uses a file-format-specific compression technique to provide better compression than generic compression for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files; Adobe Shockwave Flash (SWF) files, ZIP files, and JPEG, GIF, and PNG files.

• Application-specific acceleration: Cisco WAAS Mobile reduces application-specific latency for a broad range of applications including:

– Microsoft Exchange: Microsoft Outlook Messaging API (MAPI) Protocol acceleration

– IBM Lotus Notes

– Windows File servers or Network Attached Servers Common Internet File System (CIFS) acceleration

– Web based applications; HTTP acceleration, supporting enterprise intranet and Internet applications

– Secured web based applications; HTTPS acceleration, supporting secure intranet applications without compromising security

• Transport optimization: Cisco WAAS Mobile extends Cisco WAAS technologies to handle the timing variations found in packet switched wireless networks, the significant bandwidth-latency problems of broadband satellite links, and noisy Wi-Fi and DSL connections. The result is significantly higher link resiliency.

These techniques are proving to be highly effective in mobile-user environments.

Smallest PC Footprint

Unlike other alternatives that are ported from Linux-based branch office WAN optimization devices requiring significant CPU, memory and disk resources, Cisco WAAS Mobile is purpose-built from the start for Windows-based PCs. As a result, it is highly efficient and requires a 40 percent smaller footprint and fewer computing resources. This lean architecture helps ensure the best possible performance while minimizing resource consumptions.

Lowest Total Cost of Ownership

Cisco WAAS Mobile reduces IT support requirements that are normally associated with PC software loaded on mass-user base by offering the following features:

• Administrator toolkit to customize client deployment packaqes for self-install and integration with standard software distribution systems.

• Centralized client policy management by application type and version

• Centralized patch management for zero-touch updates

• Automated detection of incompabilities with already installed software and agents on the PC/laptop

• User accessible diagnostics and one click detailed problem reports for troubleshooting

• Centralized real-time session management and monitoring

These features are in addition to most extensive interoperability testing with a wide range of operating systems, browsers, end point security software, VPN client software, software distribution tools, desktop application software including Microsoft Office suite and IBM Lotus Notes.

Ease of Deployment

Cisco WAAS Mobile is a purpose-built, ready-to-use software solution consisting of client software for end users and software deployed on servers near existing VPN concentrators.

The client-side software is transparent and requires no user maintenance or local configuration changes:

• Remote client configuration and installation: The Cisco WAAS Mobile client configuration is established by the system administrator and the client software image can be loaded directly to remote devices using standard software distribution products including Microsoft, LANDesk, Altiris, and BigFix system management programs. The software client can also become part of the standard enterprise desktop image.

• Self end-user installation: Although the Cisco WAAS Mobile client software can be installed and configured by the end user, standard enterprise configurations can be used to ensure that the client software is operational without any user interaction.

• No reconfiguration of applications: Cisco WAAS Mobile redirects data transparently to help ensure that no configuration changes are required to any application.

• No requirement to open incoming ports on client firewall or other local security software: full preservation of existing desktop security

• Auto-detection of high-speed networks to automatically transition to an office network.

Cisco WAAS Mobile server software can be deployed easily as well:

• No changes are required to the application or file servers.

• No changes are required in network resources such as routers, switches, and WAN accelerators.

• No changes to IP network topologies are needed because the traffic is directed to the Cisco WAAS Mobile server through the client software.

• In the event of a server failure, the only effect is loss of optimization, not loss of connectivity.

• Cisco WAAS Mobile is fully compatible with standard load-balancing solutions such as the Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) for high-availability configurations.

• Flexible deployment in enterprise environments: Cisco WAAS Mobile can be deployed with or without a Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE) device, enabling flexible deployment in enterprise environments and providing any user acceleration:

– Acceleration for mobile and home-office users only: Cisco WAAS Mobile only

– Acceleration for mobile and branch-office users: Cisco WAAS Mobile and Cisco WAE

Figure 3. Cisco WAAS Mobile Extending Cisco WAAS Deployment

Cisco WAAS Mobile System Requirements

Table 1 lists client system requirements for Cisco WAAS Mobile, and Table 2 lists server requirements.

Table 1. Client System Requirements

Item	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system	Microsoft Windows 2000 and later	Microsoft Windows 2000 and later
CPU	750 GHz	1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	256MB	512 MB
Disk space available	80 MB	1 GB

Table 2. Minimum Server System Requirements (*)

Item
Operating System	• Windows 2003 Release 2 (SP1 and SP2) Standard • Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) Version 6 or higher. • Microsoft ASP.NET Version 2.0 Framework (included in installation package) • SQLite (included in installation package)
CPU	Dual Core 1.8GHz
System Memory (RAM)	2GB
Hard Drive	80GB 7.2K RPM
Interface	Dual 1Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC)

(*): Refer to the Cisco WAAS Mobile sizing guides for sizing the server

Table 3 provides ordering information for Cisco WAAS Mobile.

Table 3. Ordering Information

Product Name	Part Number
Cisco WAAS Mobile Server Software	WAAS-MBL-SRV-SW
Cisco WAAS Mobile 25 concurrent user license	WAAS-MBL-LIC25
Cisco WAAS Mobile 100 concurrent user license	WAAS-MBL-LIC100
Cisco WAAS Mobile 500 concurrent user license	WAAS-MBL-LIC500

Cisco Service and Support

Cisco offers a wide range of services programs to accelerate customer success. These innovative services programs are delivered through a unique combination of people, processes, tools, and partners, resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction. Cisco services help you protect your network investment, optimize network operations, and prepare your network for new applications to extend network intelligence and the power of your business. For more information about Cisco Services, refer to Cisco Technical Support Services or Cisco Advanced Services.

For More Information

For more information about Cisco WAAS Mobile, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/waas or contact your local account representative.

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