Description

Implementing the Cisco ACE Appliance is a four-day, instructor-led, lecture and lab course. You will learn how to deploy and configure the Cisco Catalyst 4710 Application Control Engine (ACE) Appliance.

This course covers all of the key features of the Cisco ACE appliance, including resource virtualization and management, server load balancing (Layer 2-4 and Layer 7), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) termination and offload, and security features like application-layer inspection and fixups.

Objectives

Upon completing this course, the learner will be able to meet these overall objectives:

• Describe IP application delivery with the Cisco ACE appliance
• Describe the configuration tasks necessary to successfully deploy a Cisco ACE appliance
• Describe the structure and function of the Modular Policy CLI statements used to configure Cisco ACE features
• Describe the methods used to manage the Cisco ACE appliance
• Describe the Cisco ACE features that provide IP application-based security on the Cisco ACE appliance
• Describe the capabilities and configuration of the Cisco ACE features used to provide load balancing of IP-based applications
• Describe the health monitoring capabilities of the Cisco ACE appliance
• Identify the Layer 7 processing options used to provide advanced application networking
• Describe the Cisco ACE support for SSL protocol processing
• Describe the Cisco ACE web application acceleration, optimization, and compression features
• Describe the high-availability features of the Cisco ACE appliance, which are used to provide reliable application networking services
• Describe a methodology used to design and configure multiple Cisco ACE features

Prerequisites

The knowledge and skills that a learner must have before attending this course are as follows:

• TCP/IP protocol
• HTTP and SSL protocols
• N-tier application architecture
• Server load balancing

Who Should Attend

• The primary audience for this course are systems engineers and network architects who need to design or deploy server load-balancing solutions using the Cisco ACE appliance.
• The secondary audience for this course are network operators and server administrators who need to understand the server load-balancing solutions capabilities of the Cisco ACE appliance.

• Course Introduction

   
  • Overview
  • Course Goal and Objectives
  • Course Flow
  • Additional References

• Lesson 1: Introducing the Cisco ACE 4710 Appliance

  • IP Protocol Stack Review
  • IP Application Review
  • Web Technology Overview
  • Introducing the Cisco ACE

• Lesson 2: Deploying Cisco ACE

  • Connecting Cisco ACE to the Network
  • Cisco ACE Installation Procedure
  • Cisco ACE Appliance GUI
  • Network Topologies
  • Virtualization
  • Resource Management
  • Authorizing Management Users
  • Configuring Interfaces

• Lesson 3: Modular Policy CLI

  • Class Maps
  • Policy Maps
  • Applying Policy Maps

• Lesson 4: Managing the Cisco ACE Appliance

  • Permitting Management Traffic
  • SNMP Manageability

• Lesson 5: Security Features

  • IP Access Control Lists
  • TCP/IP Fragmentation/Reassembly
  • TCP/IP Normalization
  • Network Address Translation

• Lesson 6: Layer 4 Load Balancing

  • Load-Balancing Concepts
  • Load-Balancing Algorithms
  • Configuring Layer 4 Load Balancing

• Lesson 7: Health Monitoring

  • Health Monitoring Overview
  • Active Health Probes
  • HTTP Error Code Monitoring
  • Using TCL Scripting

• Lesson 8: Layer 7 Protocol Processing

  • Configuring HTTP Layer 7 Load Balancing
  • Persistent and Pipelined HTTP Extensions
  • Server Reuse
  • Session Persistence
  • Protocol Inspection
  • HTTP Inspection
  • FTP Protocol Processing
  • Other Inspected Protocols

• Lesson 9: Processing Secure Connections

  • Digital Encryption Technologies
  • SSL Service Options
  • Configuring a Public Key Infrastructure
  • Configuring SSL Proxy Services

• Lesson 10: Deploying Application Acceleration and Optimization

  • Web Application Acceleration Architecture
  • FlashForward
  • Delta Optimization
  • Smart Redirect
  • Fast Redirect
  • FlashConnect
  • Just-in-Time Object Acceleration
  • Adaptive Dynamic Cache
  • Compression Overview

• Lesson 11: High Availability

   
  • Redundancy
  • Object Tracking
  • Failover
  • State Replication
  • Fault-Tolerance Configuration
  • Displaying Fault-Tolerance Information

• Lesson 12: Integrating Multiple Features

  • Analyzing Network Requirements
  • Designing Cisco ACE Contexts
  • Designing Cisco ACE Features
  • Configuring Multiple Integrated Features

Lab Outline

• Lab 1: Implementing Virtualization
• Lab 2: Using Network Address Translation
• Lab 3: Configuring Server Load Balancing
• Lab 4: Implementing Health Monitoring
• Lab 5: Configuring Layer 7 Load Balancing
• Lab 6: Enabling Sticky Connections
• Lab 7: Enabling Protocol Inspection
• Lab 8: Configuring SSL Termination
• Lab 9: Enabling HTTP Optimizations
• Lab 10: Integrating Multiple Features
• Lab 11: Troubleshooting Case Study 1: Common SLB Configuration Errors
• Lab 12: Troubleshooting Case Study 2: Common Layer 7 SLB Configuration Errors