Checklist for Planning Your Cisco WAAS Network
This section contains the following topics:
Network Topologies
Cisco Wide Area Application Engines (Cisco WAEs) that are running the Cisco WAAS software can be used by enterprises or service providers to optimize the application traffic flows between their branch offices and data centers. You should deploy WAE nodes at the WAN endpoints near the networked application clients and their servers, where they intercept WAN-bounded application traffic and optimize it. You must insert WAE nodes into the network flow at defined processing points.
Cisco WAAS software supports the following three typical network topologies:
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Hub and spoke deployments: In a hub and spoke deployment, servers are centralized, and branch offices host clients and a few local services only, for example, Cisco WAAS printing services.
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Mesh deployments: In a mesh deployment, a location can host both clients and servers, and the clients can access any number of local or remote servers.
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Hierarchical deployments: In a hierarchical deployment, servers are located in multiple regional and national data centers, and can be accessed by different clients. The connections between the data centers are of higher bandwidth than the connections to the branch offices.
The deployments are characterized according to the Cisco WAAS element connections, which follow the client-server access pattern and may differ from the physical network links. For more information, see the chapter "Introduction to Cisco WAAS."
Planning Checklist
When you are planning your Cisco WAAS network, use the following checklist as a guideline. As the following checklist indicates, you can break the planning phase into the following three main categories of planning activities:
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Sizing phase
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Planning for management
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Planning for application optimization
Note |
Although there are some interdependencies, you do not have to complete all of the steps in a particular planning phase before you start the next step. |
To plan your network, follow these guidelines:
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Complete the sizing phase that includes the following tasks:
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Determine which locations in your existing network require Cisco WAAS optimization, for example, branch offices and data centers.
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Determine if you are going to use a traditional Cisco WAAS deployment model or the AppNav deployment model. For more information on AppNav, see the chapter Configuring Cisco AppNav.
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Determine the number and models of the Cisco WAAS devices that are required for each location. Some key factors in this selection process is the WAN bandwidth, the number of users, and the expected use. Various hardware configurations are possible, for example, different hard disk models and RAM size. Consider running a cluster of WAEs where additional scalability and or failover is required. For more information, see Calculating the Number of Cisco WAAS Devices Required
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Verify that you have purchased sufficient licenses to cover your requirements.
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Plan for management as follows:
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Complete site and network planning, for example, obtain the IP and routing information, including IP addresses and subnets, routers and default gateway IP addresses, and hostnames for devices. See the "Checklist of Cisco WAAS Network System Parameters" table in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Quick Configuration Guide.
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Determine the login authentication and login authorization methods, for example, external RADIUS, TACACS+, Windows domain servers, and accounting policies that you want your Cisco WAAS Central Managers and WAEs to use. For more information, see the chapter .
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For security purposes, plan to change the predefined password for Configuring Administrative Login Authentication, Authorization, and Accountingthe predefined superuser account immediately after you have completed the initial configuration of a WAE. For more information, see Cisco WAAS Login Authentication and Authorization.
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Determine if you need to create any additional administrative accounts for a Cisco WAAS device. For more information, see the chapter Creating and Managing Administrator User Accounts and Groups
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Determine if you should group your WAEs into logical groups. For more information, see Logically Grouping Your WAEs.
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Determine which management access method to use. By default, Telnet is used, but SSH may be the preferred method in certain deployments. For more information, see Configuring Login Access Control Settings for Cisco WAAS Devices in the chapter "Configuring Administrative Login Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting."
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Plan for application optimization as follows:
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Determine and resolve router interoperability issues, for example, the supported hardware and software versions, router performance with interception enabled. For more information, see Site and Network Planning
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Determine the appropriate interception location when the data center or branch office is complex, for example, if your existing network uses a hierarchical topology.
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Determine which Cisco WAAS services to deploy. For more information about the different Cisco WAAS services, see the chapter "Introduction to Cisco WAAS."
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Determine which Cisco WAAS software licenses to install. Software licenses enable specific Cisco WAAS services. For more information about installing software licenses, see the Managing Cisco WAAS Software Licenses in the chapter "Configuring Other System Settings."
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Determine which traffic interception methods to use in your Cisco WAAS network, for example, AppNav, inline mode, WCCP Version 2, or policy-based routing (PBR).
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For more information on the advantages and disadvantages of using WCCP, see Supported Methods of Traffic Redirection
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For more information on WCCP traffic interception and redirection, see About Traffic Interception Methods in the chapter "Configuring Traffic Interception."
Note
WCCP works only with IPv4 networks.
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If you plan to use the WCCP TCP promiscuous mode service as a traffic interception method, determine whether you should use IP Access Control Lists (ACLs) on your routers.
Note
IP ACLs that are defined on a router take precedence over the ACLs that are defined on the WAE. For more information, see Access Lists on Routers and WAEs.
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Determine whether you have to define IP ACLs or interception ACLs on the WAEs. For more information, see Access Lists on Routers and WAEs
Note
ACLs that are defined on a WAE take precedence over the Cisco WAAS application definition policies that are defined on the WAE.
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If PBR is to be used, determine which PBR method to use to verify PBR next-hop availability for your WAEs. For more information, see Methods of Verifying PBR Next-Hop Availability in the chapter "Configuring Traffic Interception."
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Determine the major applications for your Cisco WAAS network. Verify whether the predefined application definition policies cover these applications and whether you should add policies if your applications are not covered by these predefined policies. For a list of the predefined application definition policies, see Appendix A, Predefined Optimization Policy.
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Consider day zero migration of file systems if file servers are to be centralized in the process. For more information, see Data Migration Process
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After you complete the planning tasks, you are ready to perform a basic configuration of a Cisco WAAS network, as described in the Cisco Wide Area Application Services Quick Configuration Guide.