WAN Optimization Tools
The growing popularity and widespread application of Wide Area Network (WAN) Optimization tools and solutions have given businesses the right mix of technology to make their networks efficient. WAN optimization technology and other closely related technologies such as application acceleration, WAN compression, etc. are the essential tools sought after by business organizations as they continue to expand with branch locations around the globe. System integrators, Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and other Network and Information Technology (IT) managers are expeditiously incorporating WAN optimization tools while designing custom-made solutions for users. Such a technology combination greatly accelerates network and application performance for businesses.
As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, users are demanding more technology tools and products to match the stride and so are vendors relentlessly developing more technology solutions. The current WAN optimization market has demands for technologies incorporating pattern-matching, protocol analysis, business policies, the WAN optimization plan along with automation and correlation. WAN compression is also an important technology that is sought after as part of WAN optimization technologies. Large-scale investments are increasingly being made by Customers or Users in new WAN optimization tools in order to simplify their IT infrastructure throughout the globe, minimize bandwidth costs of branch offices, and maintain and improve availability of applications and their performance.
WAN optimization tools and solutions are generally a combination of multiple approaches and algorithms, which are interwoven into a single framework that has been designed for the improvement of Wide Area Network performance. However, they have their own techniques for significantly reducing the amount of data traversing across WAN links, and the frequency of such transmissions. WAN optimization tools have a set of communication methods and protocols, which are used for communication across the network. WAN optimization tools consist of appliances, hardware or software devices, which through combining technologies such as Caching, Compression, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) optimization, Common Internet File System (CIFS) optimization, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) acceleration, Wide Area File Services (WAFS), and other related WAN optimization technologies enable a sound network infrastructure.
The right WAN optimization tools need to be selected by businesses considering the essential features of the tool in relation to their requirements. The appropriate WAN optimization techniques should be applied as their efficiency and suitability depend on the type of Internet Protocol (IP) traffic. While WAN compression is best suited for application requiring more bandwidth, TCP acceleration is suitable for transactional applications, which are sensitive to delay. Nevertheless, today’s WAN optimization solutions provide a good combination of the required technologies. The effective WAN optimization tool (or solution) contains the following essential features:
- Optimization of critical applications most essential for the business goal
- Application performance
- Provision of monitoring tools to enable maintenance, reporting, and proactive trouble-shooting
- Global WAN optimization instead of individual links. This enables optimization of meshed flows including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
- Seamless integration of multiple WAN optimization technologies
- Symmetrical and Asymmetrical at the same time since the Wide Area Network is composed of different types of sites that have traffic complexity and diverse levels of importance
The challenge to network administrators is to improve application performance and also curtail costs. WAN optimization tools are hence widely been adopted to effectuate the same. There are many technology vendors offering unique WAN optimization solutions, and it depends on the end users or customers to select that technology solution suitable for their company’s network infrastructure. Among the various leading vendors of WAN optimization tools and its related technologies Cisco, Packeteer, Riverbed Technologies, Silver Peak Systems, Stampede Technologies, and FatPipe Networks are concentrated on the WAN optimization and application acceleration market. Other major vendors such as Cisco Systems, F5 Networks, and Juniper Networks apart from their technology presence in WAN optimization technologies also incorporate WAN optimization and acceleration features in their products.
Businesses are increasingly reliant on standard technology solutions providers to provide the ultimate package of network solutions. FatPipe Networks is a pioneer in WAN optimization solutions. All kinds of Enterprises use FatPipe’s devices to ensure WAN stability and redundancy. FatPipe products have advanced product features including automatic line failover, dynamic load balancing of IP traffic, site-to-site and unit failover capabilities, which substantially increase the efficiency of WANs. FatPipe devices constantly monitor the response time of each dataline and intelligently choose which one to send the traffic on. In addition to saving time it enables maximum bandwidth utilization. Companies can deliver information efficiently through such WAN optimization tools combined with proven technology, which drastically reduces WAN latency.
