Cisco is pleased to announce the new Cisco® Application Performance Assurance Engine. Using application classification and control technology from the Cisco Service Control product family, Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine provides application identification and prioritization for today's demanding enterprise networks.
Unlike controlled Systems Network Architecture (SNA) environments, IP-based environments lack the structure to ensure appropriate application behavior. Mission-critical applications contend for available bandwidth with non-critical or unwanted applications, and many applications are subjected to network latency and jitter characteristics that impede their ability to function appropriately. With between 50 percent and 60 percent of enterprise bandwidth now being consumed by peer-to-peer (P2P) and Flash-based video traffic, network performance is significantly compromised. In specific environments, the problem can be even more pronounced. Up to 80 percent of network traffic in uncontrolled higher education environments can be P2P traffic, recreational video traffic, or traffic generated from gaming applications.
In such environments, the IT department requires a solution that is able to prioritize application traffic and control the behavior of the network traffic to make sure that the performance of each individual application reflects its importance to business operations. Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine is designed to provide that capability, offering identification and control of applications on a per user basis.
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine performs Layer 7 stateful deep packet inspection and control over network traffic on a per application, per user basis. Designed for small data centers and higher education customers, the solution is able to identify and prioritize about 1000 applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, voice over IP (VoIP), Web browsing, music downloads, distance learning applications, video streaming, or peer-to-peer traffic. It provides customers with incremental value over and above existing network-based application recognition (NBAR) technology already available in their routing and switching solutions, and allows the customer to:
• Identify and classify applications and protocols
• Identify network users and determine their application and network usage patterns (requires integration with existing authentication system)
• Police traffic to guarantee service performance and help ensure that traffic usage conforms to the required business model
• Select a variety of reports from the 100 available templates to represent existing network traffic
• For higher education customers, rapidly create and deliver a variety of unique application- and content-based services, such as prioritized gaming services, which can be offered to the students
Solution Components
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine solution consists of the hardware appliance (CAM-APA-100), a software license for either view/report capability or view/report/control capability, and the Application Performance Assurance Device Console (APA DC). A short summary of each is follows:
• Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine, which is responsible for traffic classification, collection of reporting data, and policy enforcement. The APA Engine is ordered with a software license that provides either view/report or view/report/control capability.
• The Application Performance Assurance Device Console, which is responsible for device management, fault management, policy management, and report generation.
Orderability
Table 1 provides ordering information.
Table 1. Ordering Information
Part Number
Name
CAM-APA-100
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine
APA-CX5-VO
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine View Only License
APA-CX5-CC
Cisco Application Performance Assurance Engine View and Control License
Service and Support
Using the Cisco Lifecycle Services approach, Cisco and its partners provide a broad portfolio of end-to-end services and support that can help increase your network's business value and return on investment. This approach defines the minimum set of activities needed, by technology and by network complexity, to help you successfully deploy and operate Cisco technologies and optimize their performance throughout the lifecycle of your network.
For More Information
For more information about Cisco Application Performance Engine, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/apae or contact your local account representative.
