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Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3130 for Dell Software Configuration Guide
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Configuring Web Cache Services By Using WCCP
This chapter describes how to configure your switch to redirect traffic to wide-area application engines
(such as the Cisco Cache Engine 550) by using the Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP). This
software release supports only WCCP version 2 (WCCPv2).
WCCP is a Cisco-developed content-routing technology that you can u se to integrat e w ide -are a
application engines—referred to as application engines—into your network infrastructure. The
application engines transparently store frequently accessed content and then fulfill successive requests
for the same content, eliminating repetitive transmissions of identical content from web servers.
Application engines accelerate content delivery and ensure maximum scalability and availability of
content. In a service-provider network, you can deploy th e WCCP and application engine solution at the
points of presence (POPs). In an enterprise network, you can deploy the WCCP and application e ngin e
solution at the regional site and the small branch office. T o use this featur e, the switch or the stack m aster
must be running the IP services feature set.
Unless otherwise noted, the term switch refers to a standalone switch and to a switch stack.
Note For complete syntax and usage information for the commands used in this chapter, see the “WCCP
Router Configuration Commands” section in the “System Management Commands” part of the Cisco
IOS Configuration Fundamentals Command Reference, Release 12.2.
This chapter consists of these sections:
•Understanding WCCP, page4 3-1
•Configuring WCCP, page43-5
•Monitoring and Maintaining WCCP, page 43-9

Understanding WCCP

The WCCP and Cisco cache engines (or other application engines running WCCP) localize traffic
patterns in the network, enabling content requests to be fulfilled locally.
WCCP enables supported Cisco routers and switches to transparently redirect content requests. With
transparent redirection, users do not have to configure their browsers to use a web proxy. Instead, they
can use the target URL to request content, and t he ir re ques ts ar e au t omat ica l ly r ed ir ect ed to a n
application engine. The word transparent means that the end user does not know that a requested file
(such as a web page) came from the application engine instead of from the originally specified server.