Installing Cisco WAAS Mobile

Following up from my last post, I've just finished the installation of Cisco WAAS Mobile. This is a demo for a major enterprise client.

Difference between Cisco WAAS appliance and Cisco WAASMobile...
Cisco WAAS appliance is an end to end solution for WAN (point-to-point) while Cisco WAASMobile (installed on server running Windows OS) is more of a proxy server for all TCP traffic for remote users connecting to the enterprise LAN via VPN. So to really have a traffic acceleration solution throughout the enterprise, you need to implement both the WAAS appliance and WAAS Mobile.

Minimum requirement for the server is:
OS: Windows Server 2003
CPU: Dual Core 1.8GHz
RAM: 2GB
HDD: 80GB with 7.2K RPM
NIC: Dual 1GBE NIC card

Prerequisites for the installation are:

• IIS 6.0 or higher
• ASP.NET v2.0 Framework
• Get the MAC address of the intended WAAS server and register it with Cisco and they will provide with a License Key. This is very important before you can use WAAS Mobile in a live environment.

Installation process

• Verify that IIS is installed and running
  
  
• Run Autorun.exe from the installation package
  
  
• Install an configure Cisco WAAS Mobile Manager (Web-based admin console). Also, you need to validate the license key (under 'server configuration') before you proceed to deploying this to clients
  
  
• Next on the list is to make a CAB file for client deployment under the tab 'client configuration'. Ensure you pre-configure server name using Fully Qualified Domain name (FQDN). Avoid using IP address because it is more likely to, then you won't have to repackage the client software.
  
  You can then roll this out using SMS or just simply publish it through Group Policy if you have Active Directory and deploying it to large number of users in an enterprise. I deployed the client component manually. Note that this requires restart of the machine
  
  
• Once you've deployed this to the client, there is very little configuration needed on the client side except for username and email address for registration at the first startup prompt
  

Fig 1: client monitor shows that it is now connected to the WAAS server and traffic is being proceeded through the server