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:

    My love grows wide and shallow in an effort to spread my losses.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of ... every industrial area in the whole country.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    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)

    I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)