You need WAAS in a typical centralized environment where all the resources/application servers are hosted at the central HQ site and there are a lots of branch office which access the applications like, File services, Mail services, patches, software etc. This is a typical centralized envronment and customers are moving towards it. You can use WAAS to optimize all these services and inturn does the bandwidth optimization which will remove your unncessary bandwidth reqirement. WAAS box is intelligent enough to give you TCP flow opmitmization, Compression and content caching to optimize your majority of the services across the WAN cloud. I would not recommend packetshaper in this typical ebvironment as it only shapes the packet based on the flow but does not optimize you services.
Here are few of the WAAS benefits:
1.Deliver centralized applications with LAN-like speed to remote users, while Preserving visibility and branch security.
2.Consolidate costly branch office servers, storage and backup infrastructure into data centers
3.Optimize WAN bandwidth usage
4.Maximize regulatory compliance and data Protection through consolidation of branch storage
5.Accelerate branch backup applications
Please read the link below for the features provided:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6870/products_data_sheet0900aecd8051c192.html
HTH,Please rate if it does.
-amit singh
