Cisco vWAAS Configuration Guide (for WAAS 6.4.1x)

Configuring vWAAS Settings

After the vWAAS VM has been installed, you must configure the following vWAAS settings:

• IP address and netmask
• Default gateway
• Central Manager address
• Settings for corresponding VLAN in VM for network reachability
• CMS (Centralized Management System)
• Traffic interception (described in Configuring vWAAS Traffic Interception)

To configure vWAAS settings, follow these steps:

Step 1 In the vSphere Client, choose the Console tab and log in to the vWAAS console.

The username is admin, and password is default.

Step 2 Configure the IP address and netmask using the interface virtual command, as shown in the following example:

Note For vWAAS with WAAS Version 6.1.x and later, the vWAAS and vCM devices require both virtual (network) interfaces to be present. One or both virtual interfaces may be active for the vWAAS and vCM devices to be operational after power up.

Step 3 Configure the default gateway using the ip command:

VWAAS(config)# ip default-gateway 2.1.6.1

Ping the IP addresses of the default gateway and Central Manager to verify they can be reached before continuing to the next step.

Step 4 Add the Central Manager address using the central-manager command:

Step 5 Enable CMS to register with the Central Manager using the cms command:

Note vWAAS registration with the Central Manager is mandatory before traffic can be optimized.

Step 6 Configure traffic interception: WCCP, AppNav, or L2 Inline. For more information on traffic interception methods for vWAAS, see Configuring vWAAS Traffic Interception.

Configuring vWAAS Traffic Interception

You can configure the following traffic interception methods for vWAAS. Table 2-1 provides descriptions of each traffic interception method.

– WCCP—Available for vWAAS with all WAAS versions.

– AppNav—Available for vWAAS with all WAAS versions

– L2 Inline—Available for WAAS Version 6.2.x and later, for vWAAS with RHEL KVM. Table 2-2 shows the commands for configuring and displaying information on L2 Inline interception for vWAAS.

Table 2-1 Traffic Interception Methods for vWAAS

Traffic Interception Method	Description
WCCP	Specifies interactions between one or more routers (or L3 switches) and one or more application appliances, web caches, and caches of other application protocols, to establish and maintain the transparent redirection of selected types of traffic. The selected traffic is redirected to a group of appliances. Any type of TCP traffic can be redirected. WCCP uses a WCCP-enabled router or L3 switch. Note You can configure WCCP-GRE or L2 Inline as the redirection method for vWAAS running on a UCS-E inside a Cisco ISR G2, where the UCS-E interface is configured as IP unnumbered in IOS. For more information on WCCP, see Chapter 5, “Configuring Traffic Interception” in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide.
AppNav	A policy and class-based traffic interception method that reduces dependency on the intercepting switch or router by distributing traffic among WAAS devices for optimization. For more information on AppNav, see Chapter 4, “Configuring AppNav” and Chapter 5, “Configuring Traffic Interception” in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide.
L2 Inline	Places the vWAAS in the data path between WAN and LAN, with an interface facing each segment to inspect and optimize the traffic as needed. For L2 Inline, traffic is forwarded directly without being sent back to the router. The vWAAS interfaces, with virtual NICs, appear as virtual interfaces in the WAAS CM for the running configuration. By default, the NICs supporting Inline mode do not appear in the running configuration when L2 Inline interception is not enabled. Note L2 Inline interception is available for vWAAS for RHEL KVM, for WAAS Version 6.2.1 and later. For vWAAS, L2 Inline interception does not include fail-to-wire capability. For more information on configuring L2 Inline interception on the WAAS CM, see Chapter 5, “Configuring Traffic Interception” in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Configuration Guide. Table 2-2 shows the commands for configuring and displaying information on L2 Inline interception for vWAAS.

Table 2-2 CLI Commands for L2 Inline Traffic Interception

For more information on these commands, see the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Command Reference.

Identifying a vWAAS Model

As shown in Table 2-3, a vWAAS model is determined by two features: the number of vCPUs and the maximum number of TCP connections.

Table 2-3 vWAAS Models with vCPUs and Maximum TCP Connections

Identifying a vWAAS Device on the Central Manager

There are two screens on the Central Manager that show identifying information for a vWAAS device. Table 2-4 shows the displayed vWAAS device types.

• Navigate to Devices > device-name. On the dashboard for the device, in the Device Info > Hardware Details section, the Model shows the vWAAS device type.
• Navigate to the Device > All Devices screen, which shows a listing of all devices, with column headings for different information, including Device Type.

Table 2-4 vWAAS Device Types shown in Central Manager and CLI

Identifying a vWAAS Device with the WAAS CLI

Table 2-5 shows the commands used to display vWAAS device information: For more information on these commands, see the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Command Reference.

Table 2-5 CLI Commands for vWAAS Device Information

vWAAS Upgrade and vWAAS Nodes

• When upgrading vWAAS, do not upgrade more than five vWAAS nodes at the same time on a single UCS box. Upgrading more than five vWAAS nodes at the same time may cause the vWAAS devices to go offline and to diskless mode.
• vWAAS for WAAS 6.4.1 requires additional resources before upgrading from WAAS 6.2.3d to WAAS 6.4.1.

– Upgrading from the WAAS Central Manager: If you initiate and complete the upgrade from the WAAS Central Manager without increasing resources for vWAAS, alarms (CPU & RAM) to indicate insufficient resource allocation will be displayed on the WAAS Central Manager after the upgrade process is completed. No alarms are displayed at the beginning of the upgrade process.

– Upgrading from the WAAS CLI: If you initiate an upgrade to WAAS 6.4.1 with the CLI, a warning on insufficient resources is displayed at the start of the upgrade process.

vWAAS Upgrade and SCSI Controller Type

If the virtual host was created using an OVA file of vWAAS for WAAS Version 5.0 or earlier, and you have upgraded vWAAS within WAAS, you must verify that the SCSI Controller Type is set to VMware Paravirtual. Otherwise, vWAAS will boot with no disk available and will fail to load the specified configuration.

If needed, change the SCSI controller type to VMware Paravirtual by following these steps:

Step 1 Power down the vWAAS.

Step 2 From the VMware vCenter, navigate to vSphere Client > Edit Settings > Hardware.

Step 3 Choose SCSI controller 0.

Step 4 From the Change Type drop-down list, verify that the SCSI Controller Type is set to VMware Paravirtual. If this is not the case, choose VMware Paravirtual.

Step 5 Click OK.

Step 6 Power up the vWAAS, with WAAS Version 6.2.3, or WAAS 6.1.x or later. WAAS Version 6.1.x is the minimum version used.

vWAAS Upgrade and vCM-100 with RHEL KVM or KVM on CentOS

If you upgrade to WAAS Version 6.2.3, or downgrade from WAAS Version 6.2.3 to an earlier version, and use a vCM-100 model with the following parameters, the vCM-100 may not come up due to GUID Partition Table (GPT) boot order errors.

• vCM-100 has default memory size of 2 GB
• vCM-100 uses the RHEL KVM or KVM on CentOS hypervisor
• You use the restore factory-default command or the restore factory-default preserve basic-config command

Caution If you are upgrading a vCM-100 model from an earlier WAAS version to WAAS Version 6.2.3, the upgrade process on this type of configuration will automatically clear system and data partition.

If you upgrade the vCM device to WAAS Version 6.2.3 via the console, a warning message similar to the following will be displayed:

WARNING: Upgrade of vCM device to 6.2.0 (or) higher version with ‘/sw’ and ‘/swstore’ size less than 2GB will clear system and data partition.

If you upgrade the vCM device to WAAS Version 6.2.3 via the GUI, a warning message is not displayed.

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Caution The restore factory-default command erases user-specified information stored in the flash image, including the starting configuration of the device, and also removes data from the disk, user-defined partitions, and the entire Central Manager database.

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To resolve this situation, follow these steps:

Step 1 Power down the vWAAS using the virsh destroy vmname command or the virt manager.

Step 2 Power up the vWAAS using the virsh start vmname command or the virt manager.

Note This upgrade/downgrade scenario does not occur for vCM-100 models whose memory size is upgraded to 4 GB.

Migrating a Physical Appliance Being Used as a WAAS CM a vCM

To migrate a physical appliance being used as a primary WAAS Central Manager to a vCM, follow these steps:

Step 1 Introduce vCM as the Standby Central Manager by registering it to the Primary Central Manager.

Step 2 Configure both device and device-group settings through Primary CM and ensure that devices are getting updates. Wait for two to three data feed poll rate so that the Standby CM gets configuration sync from the Primary CM.

Step 3 Ensure that the Primary CM and Standby CM updates are working.

Step 4 Switch over CM roles so that vCM works as Primary CM. For additional details please refer to “ Converting a Standby Central Manager to a Primary Central Manager ” section of the WAAS Configuration Guide.

vWAAS Downgrade Considerations

Consider the following when you downgrade vWAAS to an earlier WAAS version:

• vWAAS models vCM-500N and vCM-1000N, introduced in WAAS v5.5.1, cannot be downgraded to a version less than v5.5.1.
• On the UCS E-Series Server Module running vWAAS, downgrading to a version earlier than 5.1.1 is not supported. On other vWAAS devices you cannot downgrade to a version earlier than 4.3.1.

Note If the vWAAS device is downgraded in the following scenarios:

—from vWAAS for WAAS Version 6.4.1a to WAAS Version 6.2.3x, or
—from vWAAS for WAAS Version 6.x to 5.x

the WAAS alarm filesystem_size_mismatch is displayed; it indicates that the partition was not created as expected. To clear the alarm, use the disk delete-data-partitions command to re-create the DRE partitions.