The new Cisco WAAS Appliances, a game changer?
New appliances does not mean success for Cisco
By Larry Chaffin on Fri, 10/07/11 - 10:48am.
Everyone has been waiting to see my reaction to the next generation Cisco WAAS appliances that were announced at Interop. Could these be the game changers that Cisco needs to compete with Riverbed and also stop losing deals to Blue Coat and Certeon? Well they are really pretty boxes, they have a lot of memory and a very big WAN card. But they are not what the doctor called for, sorry Cisco.
I have been saying for years that Cisco needs to fix the software by adding features that would allow them compete against Riverbed and others. They have had I think three years to innovate the product and add features that would allow them to optimize encrypted protocols, but sadly they have not. They have done what networking companies do, they come out with bigger and better, faster, more powerful appliances. But when you don't have the features in the software, the new WAAS will be a nice foot rest for the data center.
These are the features we have been telling Cisco they need to optimize, yet none of these are in the new version 4.4 that was just released.
No encrypted MAPI, SMB2, SMB-signed CIFS or SMB2, Citrix ICA, Lotus Notes, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Forms,
Also, it seems from what I been reading that they have not fixed the data store problem that they have and that hurts them in large deployments. Very hard to scale when you have a data store managed per peer.
They have not grown the Mobile WAAS product. It is still a separate product with different software/features from the Appliance WAAS and the new 4.4 software that came out. So any features you see from the appliance software, don't expect those in the mobile. Cisco has refused to integrate the products.
I figured that Cisco would have learned its lesson after the 6500 launch and media blitz, but no. In both cases, the WAAS and 6500 Cisco has not innovated.
It looks to me like Cisco had to do something to appease the Cisco purist who only buy Cisco and were crying each time Cisco came out with a bug fix for the WAAS Software. But they will put the "Cisco Marketing Machine" into overdrive to push the new appliances. They will push the speed, the memory and how fast it is. But Cisco still has to face a fact, they are losing. Cisco just does not innovate anymore, if so they would have fixed problems with the WAAS software three years ago and added all of the encrypted protocols.
Cisco will give its normal deep discounts to customers to gain market share; but most customers are seeing past the discount and looking to a product that works for them. Unfortunately for this writer, Cisco had a huge chance and blew it. It is just another missed step, one of many by Cisco executives over the last three years.
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Larry Chaffin Ph.D is the Chief Executive Officer/Chairman and founder of Pluto Networks, a Consulting and VAR partner specializing in WAN acceleration, VoIP, WLAN, telepresence and security.
Pluto Networks is a Riverbed reseller. Pluto was previously a Cisco reseller but in June, 2010, ended its reseller relationship with the company and is no longer a Cisco channel partner.
Pluto Networks specializes in the needs of small, large and enterprise companies by always giving them a great ROI on the products they sell. Pluto Networks has a presence in 23 countries around the world enabling all of its consultants to be virtual. Larry was a Judge at Interop for the Best of Interop Awards for 2009.
Larry has also co-authored all of the books listed below:
Managing Cisco Secure Networks, Skype Me, Practical VOIP Security, Configuring Check Point NGX VPN-1/Firewall-1,Configuring Juniper Networks NetScreen & SSG Firewalls,Essential Computer Security: Everyone's Guide to Email, Internet, and Wireless Security, How to Cheat at Microsoft Vista Administration, Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals, Asterisk Hacking, 2008 VoIP and Video Conferencing, Infosecurity 2008 Threat Analysis and author of Building a VOIP Network with Nortel's MS5100, along with co-authoring/ghost writing eleven other technology books for VIOP, WLAN, security and optical technologies. Larry is currently working on a follow up to Building a VoIP network with Nortel's MCS 5100 Book as well as new books on Cisco Telepresence Networks, Practical VoIP case studies and WAN Acceleration with Riverbed.
Larry also has more than 29 vendor certifications and has been working on many others. Larry has been a principal architect around the world in 22 countries for many Fortune 100 companies designing VoIP, security, wireless and optical networks. He has expanded over time also to include application acceleration. Larry is working with worldwide company now out of Asia as a Special Assistant to the CEO and CIO as they go through organizational and network changes, helping them with strategic advice from his years of experience.
Pluto Networks is a channel partner of, LifeSize, Riverbed, Call Copy, Fastsoft and Symantec.
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