Cisco Wide Area File Services (WAFS) offers organizations with large numbers of branch offices the benefits of centralized storage with local file services. Cisco WAFS helps companies consolidate servers and storage, and centralize backup and disaster recovery processes. The results are significantly lower total cost of ownership, enhanced protection of branch-office data with reduced administration, and low latency access across the WAN.

The Cisco Edge File Engines deployed at branch offices present a view of centralized storage to local clients, providing fast, near-local LAN read and write access to the file system. At the data center, the core Cisco File Engine connects directly to one or more network attached storage (NAS) gateways or file servers, performing file requests on behalf of the remote edge Cisco File Engines and the clients they represent. Central management and monitoring by the Cisco WAFS central manager allows the Cisco File Engine Appliances to be managed easily and remotely.