Hot on the heels of recent wide-area network optimization announcements from competitors, Cisco Systems Inc., has taken its initial step into the growing application acceleration market with a product line the company says will help solve key enterprise IT challenges.
Cisco’s new Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) software offers an integrated branch solution that accelerates the performance of any TCP (transmission control protocol)-based application across the WAN and enables the consolidation of branch office server, storage and backup infrastructure.
According to Mark Weiner, director of market management for Cisco’s data centre solutions, the enterprise market is asking for a comprehensive, complete product that addresses three key areas: application acceleration, WAN optimization and wide-area file services (WAFS). “All of which can be found in the WAAS software package,” he said.
In addition to WAAS, the new portfolio includes Cisco’s lineup of wide-area application engine appliances (WAE) like WAE-512 and WAE-612 branch office appliances and WAE-7326 data centre appliance. Cisco is also offering a new network module called NM-WAE for running WAAS software on the Integrated Services Router (ISR), which the company says has over one million units deployed worldwide.
“The customer or partner can either take and install an appliance to run the WAAS software, or can actually take a module, insert it into any deployed ISR and get full optimization, full WAFS, server consolidation and acceleration of any TCP application,” said Weiner.
The portfolio provides an end-to-end product and technology solution, added Weiner, from the backend data centre through the WAN to the branch with Cisco IOS, and “a full set of business, professional and support services designed and trained around this advanced technology.”
Since launching WAAS, Cisco has focused on partners that sell into the mid-market and enterprise space, said Steve Benvenuto, business development manager for application networking services at Cisco worldwide channels.
For partners who have customers with branches that have Cisco networks, “laying in this technology is very seamless and an easy up sell,” said Benvenuto, especially when talking about the next technology that fits into the vendor’s network .
But traditional Cisco resellers that only install equipment will struggle to sell this new technology, said Zeus Kerravala, an infrastructure and security research analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group.
“You have to have some understanding of how applications work to be able to solve this, so it will require Cisco do some training of its channel,” he said. “The channel partner would bring a large degree of credibility by walking into an enterprise and knowing what the problem is.”
One of the challenges for vendors in this space, said Kerravala, is making sure their channel understands how to speak the language of applications and not just what’s on the network.
He added that although Riverbed Technology is the current technology leader in the WAN optimization space, Cisco has a large installed base it can leverage.
“Cisco will lead by having product because they’re Cisco. I do think they’ve been somewhat late to market, but for them it doesn’t matter,” he said.
For Cisco, the value proposition lies in the integration of WAAS into the network, which is an advantage over other vendors, said Kerravala.
Another benefit for Cisco, according to Pat Scheckel, vice-president of Berbee Information Networks Corp., a Madison, Wis.,- based Cisco gold partner, is that customers want their WAN needs dealt by their network vendor.
“Given Cisco’s market share in routing and switching, we won’t have any trouble finding customers who have that footprint,” said Scheckel.
“This is something that can work with the existing network devices to reduce server sprawl, allow you to get much more granular and the appliance form factor makes it easy to manage and upgrade.”
Scheckel added that deploying the new Cisco devices into branch offices and then using centralized storage and backup becomes much more feasible than under a typical server model.
In order to install this technology, the partner has to assess existing applications running on the network, monitor the deployment as well as perform ongoing optimization, said Cisco’s Benvenuto.
“There’s a really nice lifecycle services opportunity for partners that we see in this space. And by getting much closer to delivering the critical business apps, it elevates the strategic importance of the partner as it relates to their relationship with the customer,” he said.
The appliance-based branch office solution, which includes the WAAS software and a Cisco WAE appliance, is available immediately with a list price starting at US$8,500. The new ISR network module solution is available later this year starting at US$4,000.
