Cisco and Microsoft roll out Windows on WAAS Networking Appliance

You don’t see a lot of Cisco and Microsoft “joint announcements”. In this case, Microsoft and Cisco jointly announced a new networking appliance - Windows on WAAS. The “WAAS” is Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services initiative (read more about WAAS here). WAAS is designed to accelerate application performance to remote offices and by having Windows 2008 Server virtualized inside the WAAS Appliance, there is no need for a separate Windows Server. In this way, the WAAS Appliance (and embedded Windows Server) can provide necessary branch office services like Active Directory (AD), DHCP, DNS, and File Services.

To learn more, take a look at Microsoft & Cisco’s Joint website on Windows on WAAS.

Also, check out these videos covering WAAS:

• Cisco WAAS Overview Video
• Interview with Cisco WAAS Product Manager and Cisco WASS Mobile
  
• How to Configure Cisco WAAS