topic Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM) in Application Networking

Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

anoop.v.p — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:16:34 GMT

Dear All,

We are planning to have WAAS solution in our corporate. It is a small setup with 3 sites. We are thinking of using the SRE module in the WAN routers. While going through the documentations a need for additional Central Manager is mentioned. Just wonder is it really required to have it considering a small setup?

Regards,

Anoop

Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

Daniel Arrondo Ostiz — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:16:09 GMT

Hi Anoop,

Yes, it's mandatory to have a central manager, even if it's a small setup. Without it, there are many things (for example, CIFS optimization) that will not work.

If you don't want to invest in extra hardware, you can always go for the approach of running the central manager as a VMWare virtual machine.

Regards

Daniel

Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

Felix Arrieta — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:55:38 GMT

hello Anoop,

It depends on what type of optimization you will require at the small site, for example I am confident that HTTP content, video streaming, basic transport and enterprise license optimizations should still work without a CM ( I have never done a lab without a CM so I am speaking from my experience)

Please keep in mind that a WAAS system without a CM is not supported!! in addition it will be very difficult to troubleshooting anything without the CM anyways.

The CM performs the role of a centralized point of configuration for multiple WAE's even if they are just 2 or 3 WAE's it is still as important as it is for a big deployment.

Without a CM, you won't be able to take advantage of CIFS prepositioning, SSL key management, or secure store (WAE disk encryption) and you won't be able to use the nice graphical reporting charts that WAAS CM provides ( to see what exactly is WAAS doing on your network from your small office to your data center or wherever the traffic is going to)

in regards Virtual WAAS ( as refered on the previous comment ) you might want to take a look at the following links:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11231/index.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/app_ntwk_services/waas/waas/v431/vwaas/guide/vwaasguide.html

good luck!

Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

anoop.v.p — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:27:52 GMT

Hi Daniel,

Appreciate your comments. vWAAS is another option we are thinking off.

Regards,

Anoop

Re: Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

anoop.v.p — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:35:06 GMT

Hi Felix,

Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps.

Regards,

Anoop

Re: Is it mandatory to have Central Manager (CM)

leandro.brito — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:37:18 GMT

So, looks like it's possible to make 02 WAAS boxes (like NM-WAE-502) work without a CM, even if some apps doesn't work.

Does someone has tried that yet?

I'm trying the same on a lab environment.

Regards,

Leandro