Cisco iWAN and ISR-AX

[Lungelo Ngqumetyana]

Hi,

I have a customer that has a lot of interest in Cisco IWAN and WAAS Express since already in his network we have deployed Cisco ISR G2s. 

My question is the following:

1. To Deploy Cisco iWAN do you require Cisco ISR-AX? In other words to utilize WAAS Express, AVC, PFR and DMVPN there are certain requirements like maximum RAM for an ISR router in order to have more than 10 optimized connections and Intelligent WAN is to use PFR and DMVPN for critical traffic routing.

2. So basically, is it a requirement to deploy iWAN that you must have ISR-AX?

3. If you don't have these ISR-AX and only have ISR G2 it means you must upgrade RAM to its maximum and also buy the WAAS Express license and AVC?

My reasoning for these questions is based on the fact that ISR-AX to me looks like a portfolio that has been made up to cater for all these requirements, in other words you don't have to upgrade RAM because it will be at its maximum already when you order an ISR-AX?

Could someone please assist me on this?

Thanks & Kind Regards

Lungelo

[finn.poulsen · Accepted solution]

Hi Lungelo,

Ideally you should ask you Cisco AM or SE about this to get the proper response.

But basically you'll need additional DRAM (all you can mount ;-) on ISR-G2s for running WAAS Express only and you'll need a WAAS-X license as well.

Besides this you'll need some additional license to run iWAN stuff like PFR etc. This used to be the Data license (for ISR-G2), but this has been transferred to the APP license, which also includes WAAS-Express license (but you'll still need the DRAM upgrade)

Remember that iWAN is not a product, but a collection of different features, for which you can pick and chose ... to some extent at least.

And yes - your comment on why they made the ISR-AX bundles is correct - to cater for all the requirements.

Q#1 : see above

Q#2 : not for iWAN alone, but in combination with WAAS-Express (or you can by RAM and licenses)

Q#3 : yes that is correct.

You might want to consider using the new ISR-4000 series routers in the future instead of the G2, where almost everything on the new routers are controlled by licensing, so you don't have to visit the sites to perform RAM upgrades etc.

Also the ISR-4000 routers are much more powerful, and might be better suited for PFR.

Best Regards

Finn Poulsen

[Lungelo Ngqumetyana]

Hi Finn,

Thank you so much for the detailed response that was exactly the type of response I wanted.

However I'm of the view that the Cisco WAAS Express product is more cost effective when you compare it with other Vendors since it leverages on the existing hardware (ISR routers) but the only challenge though is the issue of DRAM upgrades and the fact that yu have to buy aditional lecenses for things like AVC.

WAAS Express alone I think it's good enough and I'm aware that PFR is already available on the Data license and DMVPN. So I think we will go for WAAS Express for now and then probably expand it from there.

For WAAS Express we looking at least at one Headend stand alone device to get the full TFO, DRE LZ Compression otherwise we will be limited to TFO and LZ Compression if we don't have a Headend device, could you confirm this?

Otherwise I want to thank you so much for your response it has brought some light now on this issue, thank you so much once again.

Kind Regards

Lungelo

[finn.poulsen]

Hi Lungelo,

You'll need the WAAS Express license as well, unless included in ISR-AX.

You will probably have some (read little) DRE optimization between WAAS Express sites, but since you don't have a disk for storing the DRE cache, your benefits will be somewhat limited.

But it has always been good practice to have a "proper" WAAS appliance as head-end in the "datacenter",

Check the response from Daniel in this post : https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11721566/sre-710-head-end where he explains the WAAS-X behaviour

Best Regards

Finn Poulsen

[Lungelo Ngqumetyana]

Hi Finn,

Thank you man much appreciated, I have just read Daniel's post it's quite detailed. 

Kind regards

Lungelo

[Michael Korenbaum]

WAAS Express is NOT part of Cisco IWAN.   PfR and WAAS Express do not interoperate.  

As Finn suggested you should use the ISR-4K with ISR-WAAS if you want a full integrated solution. Or install an UCS-E and vWAAS.

Reach out to your Cisco account team and I'm sure they could help you come up with a proper BoM / design.