IWAN APIC-EM and Prime (AVC and WAAS)

[Ahmed Zein]

Hello Experts,

     i have a detailed question for IWAN deployment,

1-our customer asking for IWAN solution, with a deployment application.

2-we have proposed Prime as it support all IWAN features to deploy, e.g. DMVPN, PfR, QOS, AVC and WAAS <-- Is this correct?

3-APIC-EM IWAN APP is very helpful in policy administration, as it designed mainly for policy control <-- is this correct?

4-But APIC-EM cannot be used to deploy full IWAN solution, as it does not support AVC<-- is this correct?

5-also APIC-EM cannot deploy WAAS and AKAMAI, <-- is this correct?

6-what is the deifference between AVC and WAAS deployment in general? just a brief answer

7-Now if all above is correct, we have to choose Prime for full WAN deployment(WAAS/AKAMAI/AVC included), <-- is this correct?

8-If we used Prime for IWAN deployment, i think prime is not helpful in Policy operation, i.e. it is not simple in prime to change policy and control it during production, i think APIC-EM is capable to do this job<-- is this correct?

9-So how i can use APIC-EM in operation while i already used prime for IWAN deployment??

i mean if we deployed everything using Prime, and i need to purchase the APIC-EM IWAN APP for operation purpose and control the PfR and Policy on daily basis, How i can configure the IWAN hub and sites on APIC-EM while it is already configured via Prime!!

Please reply my question ASAP, with details, and in the same sequence, as we should give a brief tech proposal for the customer soon.

and customer wanna use prime and do not believe in APIC-EM.

[npassosg · Accepted solution]

Hi Ahmed,

2 -- That's correct.

3 -- Not correct. IWAN app allows you to deploy and manage your IWAN. Not only it allows you to manage your policies, it also allows you to provision hub sites and spoke sites.

4 -- IWAN app supports AVC.

5 -- Correct. IWAN app / APIC-EM don't support WAAS or Akamai.

6 -- WAAS performs WAN optimization. AVC gives you visibility over the performance of your applications. They are quite different features.

7 -- That is correct. If you want WAAS, Akamai and AVC you cannot use IWAN app.

8 -- I can't speak much for Prime.

9 -- You need to choose between Prime and IWAN app. If you already provisioned your hubs and spokes with Prime, you won't be able to manage them with IWAN app. You need to provision all your hubs and spokes with IWAN app in order to be able to manage policy.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Nuno

[Ahmed Zein]

Anyone can help in number 8, please.

and also check the other points, if needed.

[David Hild]

Ahmed,

Like many of Cisco's management/deployment products, there are many features/functions which overlap across the platforms, hence the confusion over which one to use. The thing to remember in this case is that the primary function of Prime Infrastructure is for monitoring and reporting. Having said that, it also does some automation regarding deployment, licensing, and managing support contracts. It has a broad scope of products/technologies that it is able to monitor. In contrast, APIC-EM is designed to more specifically orchestrate, automate and deploy the many layers of IWAN technologies which, if managed manually, is quite cumbersome for most people. It also provides statistical analysis and reporting.

APIC-EM is more of a controller and less of a monitoring tool and is specific to those products which run IWAN, although I suspect we will see that expand soon. Prime Infrastructure is more of a monitoring tool and less of a controller. Are there features that overlap? Yes! But in many ways the two products compliment each other greatly.

I hope this is helpful.