WAAS Cached content access through Checkpoint firewall

[Douglas Bradfield]

          Hello,

I would like to open access to the cached content on the WAAS from a server through a Checkpoint firewall. The server has to have L3 access to the actual WAE device, from what I understand. Is this feasable? What ports would I need to open in the Checkpoint?

Thanks

Doug Bradfield      

[Felix Arrieta]

I don't think it will work the way you describe it, let's focus on the "cache content going directly from the WAE to a server. When we talk about cache content being available from a WAE it refers to prepositioning.. and prepositioning means content that is available to remote users at a LAN-like speed access to server files.

In regards the firewall, if it is located at the LAN site of the WAE you should not worry about it, firewalls tend to be a problem when there are between the path of a WAE to another WAE peer.

Preposition does not happens automatically it needs to be configure:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/app_ntwk_services/waas/waas/v441/configuration/guide/filesvr.html#wp1043490

hope this helps!

[Douglas Bradfield]

Felix,

Inbetween the WAE and the WAE peer, there is no firewall. However, the traffic comes from a server that is behind a firewall.

server ----> firewall -----> WAE --------> WAE peer -----> Client.

[Felix Arrieta]

Hello Douglas,

one way to check the basic connectivity to the server is doing a telnet on port 443  from the WAE ( you are testing the TCP connection)

You should see something like this:

WAE#telnet 445

WAE#telnet 10.66.86.51 445

Trying 10.66.86.51...

Connected to 10.66.86.51.

Escape character is '^]'.

^]

telnet>

If somehow the firewall is blocking the traffic from the server to the  WAE on the same LAN network I suggest to ask to the firewall team for  support because that is just a TCP connection without optimization ( or I hope someone more experience with non-Cisco-Firewalls   can see this treat and help you further)

note:

I'm still not sure if you are doing prepositioning....I hope I make myself clear when saying that if  not prepositioning configure  and you're  trying to access cache content from a WAE directly it won't work.

good luck,

[Douglas Bradfield]

We have full connectivity and optimization from point A to point B through the firewall. I was talking to a friend about the server accessing the cache. I would think that if you make a connection and it optimizing then you are getting to the cached content. Is that correct or am I confusing myself?

Thanks for your patience

[Felix Arrieta]

Hello Douglas,

You're correct, if you see an optimized connection  is probably being cache ( probably not the whole file)  there is a big difference between "cache data" and "preposition data" .

Cache data is not for you to control or manually retrieve from the WAE box. WAAS controls what is being cache or delete when more new data comes through.

Preposition data is something you can manually store on the Remote WAE so remote users are benefit of a faster access to files already preposition. But this is uppon remote users request to the server( Users don't know that WAAS exist they just see the  server-share they've always use) so WAAS notice that a user is requesting a file that a remote WAE already got in their preposition files, so it provide faster access to the file.

Neither of this two options above will let you access WAAS content like you describe on the initial question, you said you want open access to WAE files from a server right ?  you can still get the files on your server and this files can be optimazed if you  server is behind the WAAS optimization path, but you'd need to go and from the server copy the files one by one just like if you were retrieving them from a  client PC.

hope this helps!

[Douglas Bradfield]

Is there a way to ID the cache on the WAE? We are trying to figure out what is on there to see if it is being used properly to speed up our data transit. Theory: With the caching it should have most of the data already on the WAE, the application turns should be reduced because there is less data to traverse? Does that make sense?

[Felix Arrieta]

There is not way to see what is cached  on the WAE, it is constantly changing anyways ( remember I mention it is uppon users requests)  the only way to see what files are cache is if you do prepositioning.

It makes sense that applications should  benefit from WAAS caching or through preposition, that's the way it works.