WAN optimization gaining ground By Kevin Komiega
December 27, 2007—Virtual private networks (VPNs) still reign supreme as the top technology for tying together the distributed enterprise, but as the number of mobile workers continues to skyrocket, WAN optimization and acceleration technologies are gaining ground in enterprise environments as a viable option for centralizing data management and speeding application access at the edge.
According to a new study from Forrester Consulting, VPNs are king of the hill with 35% of enterprises stating that they are currently deploying SSL VPN technology on a large scale, with an additional 30% of enterprises citing a strategic VPN initiative underway. But WAN optimization implementations are currently the second most common technology being used to tackle the distributed enterprise. According to Forrester, 48% of the enterprises surveyed had implemented the technology to some degree, with 26% already considering their implementations to be large-scale and strategic.
The study, "Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World," surveyed more than 300 IT decision makers in a range of industries and, based on the data collected by Forrester, there is no doubt that organizations are fragmenting at a rapid pace.
For example, 40% of respondents say that their organization will likely be more decentralized three years from now. This continued decentralization is creating high demand for technologies that can maintain control of user data while accelerating user access to network resources. That is why, according to Forrester, companies are looking to wide area data services (WDS) and WAN optimization/acceleration vendors to tie it all together, and the vendors are responding to growing demand.
Packeteer plays in the WDS space and plans to begin delivering some new products in the first few months of 2008 to more effectively centralize management of mobile and distributed users.
Among the new products is a unified central management system called IntelligenceCenter, which is a single portal for control of applications across the enterprise. Also on the horizon is a new version of Packeteer's Mobiliti, which centralizes backups of remote user data and speeds application access, as well as a new Turbo edition of the company's iShaper appliance.
"The Turbo platform will be the first product to use our next generation architecture. It sits on top of our existing PacketShaper 10000 platforms and acts as a turbocharger to boost capacity over the WAN and help customers achieve scalability requirements," says Mike Urban, director of product marketing at Packeteer.
The IntelligenceCenter Console is available free of charge to Packeteer customers. The IntelligenceCenter Reporting Module and Data Collector are also available now and are priced according to the number of devices managed and the rate of application flows supported, respectively.
Riverbed Technology is also rolling out new products to help users protect and control data in an increasingly distributed world. For example, the company recently announced version 4.1 of its Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) and the upcoming availability of a new Steelhead appliance, model 6120. The enhancements in RiOS 4.1 and the Steelhead 6120 include application-specific optimization for large-scale data transfers in support of disaster recovery operations.
RiOS 4.1 now combines WAN optimization with a new set of behavioral traffic-recognition features to enable adaptive acceleration based on the size and type of the data being transferred. RiOS automatically recognizes disaster recovery operations, such as data replication and backup jobs, and adjusts accordingly to give priority to DR applications for faster performance.
The Steelhead 6120 appliance is designed for data-center-to-data-center transfers, while retaining the capability to support acceleration for branch offices and mobile workers. The 6120 has a raw capacity of 7TB and a data store that is more than 3TB.
In addition, Riverbed has introduced optimizations for Oracle11i applications and encryption capabilities for the data stored on disk in Steelhead appliances.
RiOS 4.1 is available now at no additional cost to licensees with a maintenance and support contract. Pricing for the Steelhead 6120 starts at $119,995.
Action Item: As distributed data models continue to accelerate and users demand consistent application performance, wide area data services will become increasingly important in IT's portfolio. However, prior to choosing a product, users should document their requirements for WAN optimization (e.g. branch office to central site versus data center to data center) and clearly understand the implications on cost, performance, problem determination and tuning.