Wide Area Application Services

Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) is technology developed by Cisco Systems that optimizes the performance of any TCP-based application operating in a wide area network (WAN) environment while preserving and strengthening branch security. WAAS combines WAN optimization, acceleration of TCP-based applications, and Cisco's Wide Area File Services (WAFS) in a single appliance or blade. It is Cisco's attempt to keep WAN optimization residing firmly in the router, eliminating the need to deploy acceleration appliances throughout the infrastructure. The technology preserves TCP information within the network while offering the performance benefits that come along with using WAN optimization technology.

WAN optimization appliances have traditionally limited IT when it comes to maintaining functions such as security, Quality of Service, visibility, and monitoring end-to-end transactions because they tend to cause problems for most network monitoring devices and tools. By design, WAN Optimization “confuses” performance monitoring systems by changing packet header data.


Latest Release
Cisco's latest WAAS software release, announced at the 2007 Cisco Networkers conference, is the industry's first solution for both end-to-end monitoring and acceleration of application traffic.


Famous quotes containing the words wide, area, application and/or services:

    “Hail, hail, plump paunch, O the founder of taste
    For fresh meats, or powdered, or pickle, or paste;
    Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod,
    And emptier of cups, be they even or odd;
    All which have now made thee so wide i’ the waist
    As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced;
    But eating and drinking until thou dost nod,
    Thou break’st all thy girdles, and break’st forth a god.”
    —Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

    “During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
    —Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “May my application so close
    To so endless a repetition
    Not make me tired and morose
    And resentful of man’s condition.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.”
    —Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)