Implementing the Cisco ACE Appliance

Course description
Application Control Engine Appliance is a 4-day, instructor-led, lecture/lab course. You will learn how to deploy and configure the Application Control Engine (ACE) appliance.

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


Learning objectives
After you complete this course, you will be able to:

• The methods used to manage the ACE appliance
• ACE features that provide IP application based security
• The capabilities and configuration of the ACE features used to provide load balancing of IP based applications
• The health monitoring capabilities of the ACE module
• Layer 7 processing options used to provide advanced application networking
• ACE support for SSL protocol processing
• Key application acceleration and optimization features and their benefits in the overall design
• The High Availability features of the ACE appliance which are used to provide reliable application networking services
• A methodology used to design and configure multiple ACE features

Who should attend
This course is designed for systems engineers and network architects who need to design or deploy server load-balancing solutions using the Cisco ACE appliance.


Recommended prerequisites

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

Course outline
Lesson 1: Introducing ACE

• IP Protocol Stack Review
• IP Application Review
• Introducing ACE

Lesson 2: Deploying ACE

• Connecting ACE to the Network
• 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 ACE appliance

• Permitting Management Traffic
• SNMP Manageability
• GUI

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

• HTTP Layer 7 Load Balancing
• Persistent/Pipelined HTTP Extensions
• HTTP Modifications
• Session Persistence
• HTTP Inspection
• FTP Protocol Processing
• 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

• FlashForward
• DeltaOptimization
• SmartRedirect
• FastRedirect
• FlashConnect
• J-I-T Object Acceleration
• Adaptive Dynamic Cache
• AppXtender
• AppScope
• AppScreen

Lesson 11: High Availability

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

Lesson 12: Integrating Multiple Features

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

Course labs
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: Integrate Application Acceleration and Optimization Features Into the Load Balancing Design
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