Best placement of WAAS mobile

[TCAM]

Hi,

What is the best practice?  Should WAAS mobile server be installed as close to Internet router as possible? or should WAAS mobile server be installed as close to server farms where the applications are?

Let's say the internet router and server farms are NOT co-located at the same building.

Thanks!

Joe

[pevaneyn]

Hi Joe,

You should place the WAAS Mobile server as close to the resources you want to access as possible. So the answer depends on what you want to accelerate: internet traffic or traffic to the servers.

Best regards, Peter

[TCAM]

Thanks Peter for the info & comments.

In my case, let's say I don't want to accelerate Internet traffic (http) but I do want to accelerate traffic to the servers (ftp for example). 

My internet router (http traffic) is located at Bldg 1

My server farms (ftp traffic) are located at Bldg 2

If I put the WAAS mobile server at Bldg 2, when WAAS mobile client connects to WAAS mobile server, does WAAS mobile client intercept "ALL" traffic & send to WAAS mobile server at bldg 2 regardless the traffic will or will not be accelerated?   So when the the non-accelerate traffic (http) comes out from WAAS mobile server, we will need to route the http traffic back to the Internet router at bldg 1?  Is that correct?

Many thanks

Joe 

[pevaneyn · Accepted solution]

The WAAS client will intercept all traffic to the networks you specify. See:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/app_ntwk_services/waas/waas_mobile/v3.5/configuration/administration/guide/CiscoWAASMobileAdminGuide_3_5.pdf

page 41, "Configuring Client Networking".

You could add only the ftp servers in Bldg2 in your example. If you had another farm in Bldg1 your could direct traffic towards those servers to another WAAS-Mobile serverfarm.

All traffic send via the WAAS-Mobile server will exit the server (in the default setting) with the IP of the server and using the routing table of the server, so yes you would have to arrange for traffic between the server and the internet.

Alternatively you can define an ip range (as big as the ip range of the clients) to use for outgoing traffic or you can use the original IP of the client (this requires some magic in your network). See page 27.

Best regards, Peter

[TCAM]

Thanks Peter,

Just want to clarify that all traffic that is transiting WAAS mobile server will be using WAAS mobile server's IP address as the souce IP address, so bascially WAAS mobile server is proxying all traffic in and out of the box.  Is that correct?  same goes to WAAS mobile client on the remote side?

Regards,

Joe

[pevaneyn]

Hello Joe,

With the default settings, if the server is being used, yes.

Best regards, Peter

[TCAM]

Great, thanks Pete for all your help and inputs.  I appreciated.

Regards,

Joe