Has anyone had experience w/ WAAS?

[Cooky]

We used to run Cisco's ACNS to cache web traffic, but stopped doing that due to some design flaws and code bugs.

So we have some content engines laying around doing nothing, and I'd like to re-deploy them to optimize our WAN apps.

Was wondering if anyone's used their WAAS product line and if so what are your thoughts?

 

[Cooky]

Nobody??
It's something that Cisco's pushing really hard to compete against the others like Riberbed's Steelhead...

 

[nightowl]

Cooky, what do you want to know? I have worked with it since the very early stages. As far as performance most vendors are within a few percentage points of each other when you look at things over all. Now, it is more about how it integrates into your network and supportability.

 

[Cooky]

As I said we already have the hardware in our datacenter and the remote sites; we just need to determine if we want to continue using Cisco's WAN optimization products.
In terms of integration, we already have L3 switches or routers that support WCCP, so it shouldn't be a problem there - BTW, which platform do you use to run WCCP?

I'd like to know if it is worth the time & cost. (ie, if there's only 5% improvement, I don't want to invest the manpower & hardware)

Is the improvement margin as good as Cisco's claims? (they claim 100x at peak)

Which apps do you run over the WAN, and which ones have you seen w/ the most improvement?
We'd like to optimize Exchange (2003 & 2007) & HTTP traffic. They take up 85% of our WAN circuits.

 

[Cooky]

Seriously, nobody else has had experience w/ Cisco's WAAS?