DELL Dell SonicWALL WXA 1.3 User Manual

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Introduction   |   13
Chapter 2 
Introduction
Introduction
WXA 1.3 is the latest version of firmware for the Dell SonicWALL WXA series appliance. This 
chapter provides an overview of the WAN Acceleration feature, the WAN Acceleration 
management interface, deployment prerequisites and considerations, supported platforms, and 
details the key features in the WXA 1.3 and previous releases. This chapter contains the 
following sections:
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What is WAN Acceleration?
The WAN Acceleration service allows network administrators to accelerate WAN traffic 
between a central site and a branch site, using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) 
acceleration methods, Windows File Sharing (WFS) acceleration, and Web caching. The Dell 
SonicWALL WXA series appliance is deployed in conjunction with a Dell SonicWALL NSA/TZ 
series appliance. In this type of deployment, the NSA/TZ series appliance provides dynamic 
security services, such as attack prevention, Virtual Private Network (VPN), routing, and Web 
Content Filtering. The WAN Acceleration service can increase application performance.