WAAS and Altiris Integration

jaye15394 · ‎04-02-2008

Has anyone deployed WAEs in place of the Altiris Name Server/Notification server at a branch site?

It looks like the Altiris NS uses TCP and is used for data pre-positioning as well as basic inventory and queries to hosts.

I'm working with 2 main office and 6 branches. Altiris typically requires 1-2 servers at each site. I'd like to see if it's possible to replace those 1-2 servers with WAEs and also be able to collapse the file/print servers too for added benefit. Is it possible?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Jason

dstolt · ‎04-02-2008

Jason,

I have deployed Altiris with ACNS over HTTP and don't see any reason why WAAS wouldn't work even better via CIFS. I have also used WAAS with SMS in similar installs. You can preposition the packages via CIFS and then have your client use the central servers \\servername\sharename as the path to access the packages. WAAS would intercept the requests and serve the content locally which offloads the WAN links. Inventory and queries are also TCP, which can then be accelerated as well.

This would allow you to collapse the requirements for remote boxes as well as then take a look at the file and print servers as well. Just be sure to allow enough CIFS disk space for both (Software distribution and file services).

Hope that helps,

Dan

jaye15394 · ‎04-02-2008

Dan,

That does help and validates what I was thinking thus far. I thought the preposition was done via TCP 80/443 and wasn't sure about the app layer. But sounds like you are confirming the preposition is done via CIFS?

Do you have any official Cisco docs that describe an Altiris/WAAS deployment? That would be ideal in this situation to provide to the server folks and have them digest the material.

Thanks,

Jason

dstolt · ‎04-02-2008

WAAS prepositioning is done today via the CIFS Tunnel (4050) for CIFS. You would have to have the packages available via CIFS share on the server and then the Core WAE can log in as read only and replicate out the packages. For best results, have the clients request their packages via CIFS URL instead of HTTP or FTP.

I do not have a Doc specifically on Altiris and WAAS that I can share. Although you can see plenty of references on a search of "cisco waas altiris" on the internet.

Hope that helps,

Dan