WAAS and WCCP

Question

Hello ,
I have many Qs regarding the WAAS implemntation
1- which better , using inline card or wccp and why ( is there any problem with inline cards ?)
2- if we have ASA in the network , is there any os version required for the ASA to support tha WAAS, we have impelmnted the waas with wccp between 2 branches, all traffic optimized but there is 2 applications blocked ( not working at all ) , the 2 applications passing via Firewall is there any known reason for that ?
3- we have cat4500 and it should support wccp to redirect traffic for WAAS , but redirect list is not supported at all, do you know if that for all 4500 platform or for just specific OS or Sup as nothing clear on Cisco regarding this point ( wccp redirect list ).
Thanks
Moamen

Answer 1

Hey Moamen,
1. I would not say either is better, but there are different applications. Where you need more then a single WAE for scaling and redundancy, I would recommend WCCP. Where you have fairly simple topology, requirements for only one WAE, and/or non-Cisco gear, I would probably recommend In-line. I've done ton's of both and both work really well for interception.
2. ASA do have a minimum recommend code version. For interoperability with WAAS, you need Cisco ASA/PIX version 7.2.3 or later. In that version, there is the command "inspect waas" to allow for the sequence number jump in optimized traffic, which is why your ASA is blocking the traffic.
3. The CAT4500 can support WCCP in hardware. The platform hardware only supports ingress interception, L2-redirect, L2-return, mask-assign configs on the WAE and the minimum IOS version I would recommend running would be 12.2(40)SG or later. As you mentioned, there are limitations with the redirect lists, they are NOT supported in any version of IOS, it's a function of the hardware. If you need to exclude traffic, you might want to consider using application policies when using CAT-4500.
I hope that helps you out.
Dan