Installation guide

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Device Manager Guide, Cisco ACE 4700 Series Application Control Engine Appliance
OL-26645-02
Chapter 1 Overview
Understanding ACE Features
Understanding ACE Features
The ACE performs high-performance server load balancing (SLB) among groups of servers, server farms,
firewalls, and other network devices, based on Layer 3 as well as Layer 4 through Layer 7 packet
information. The
ACE provides the following major features and functionality.
• Ethernet Interfaces—The ACE provides four physical Ethernet ports that provide an interface for
connecting to 10-Mbps, 100-Mbps, or 1000-Mbps networks. Each Layer 2 Ethernet port supports
autonegotiate, full-duplex, or half-duplex operation on an Ethernet LAN, and can carry traffic
within a designated VLAN interface.
• Routing and Bridging—You configure the corresponding VLAN interfaces on the ACE as either
routed or bridged. When you configure an IP address on an interface, the
ACE automatically
configures it as a routed mode interface. When you configure a bridge group on an interface VLAN,
the
ACE automatically configures it as a bridged interface.
• Traffic Policies—The ACE allows you to perform advanced administration tasks such as using
traffic policies to classify traffic flow and the action to take for the type of traffic. Traffic policies
consist of class maps, policy maps, and service policies.
• Redundancy—Redundancy provides fault tolerance for the stateful switchover of flow, and offers
increased uptime for a more robust network.
• Virtualization—Virtualization allow you to manage ACE system resources and users, as well as the
services provided to your customers. Multiple contexts use the concept of virtualization to partition
your
ACE into multiple virtual devices or contexts. Each context contains its own set of policies,
interfaces, resources, and administrators.
• Server Load Balancing— Server load balancing (SLB) on the ACE provides network traffic policies
for SLB, real servers and server farms, health monitoring through probes, and firewall load
balancing.
• ACE Security Features—The ACE contains several security features including ACLs, NAT, user
authentication and accounting, HTTP deep packet inspection, FTP command request inspection, and
application protocol inspection of DNS, HTTP, ICMP, or RTSP.
• Secure Sockets Layer—The SSL protocol on the ACE provides encryption technology for the
Internet, ensuring secure transactions.
Step 5
Add user accounts. In this step you set up tiered access for users. See Managing the
ACE Appliance, page 15-1 for details.
Step 6
Perform administrative
tasks.
This step includes ongoing maintenance and administrative tasks,
such as follows:
• Updating ACE appliance software (see Managing ACE
Appliance Licenses, page 4-29).
• Monitoring virtual context or ACE Appliance Device Manager
statistics (see “Monitoring Your Network” section on
page 14-1).
Table 1-8 Configuration Task Overview (continued)
Task Description