6 ITadviser Winter 2009
optimisation
Infrastructures in business
Today's technology can affect businesses in
many different ways. Deployed properly it
can propel a company to greater
productivity and profitability with far fewer
resources than were required just a few
years ago. Conversely, the most advanced
applications in the world are of little use to a
business if the underlying infrastructure
cannot support them. Each year new
applications are introduced to the
marketplace, and many are worthy of
consideration by business customers.
Unfortunately businesses often fail to
consider the affect these applications will
have on the performance of their network.
At the same time businesses are more
focused on cost containment than at any
other time in recent memory. Never before
has the mantra "do more with less" been
more appropriate, and especially with
regard to data networks. However, for many
businesses paying for additional bandwidth
this is not an option. Meanwhile data
networks are being asked to do more than
ever before.
In addition to higher volumes of voice,
email and video traffic, remote servers are
becoming more and more prevalent.
Whether its offsite disaster recovery or a
hosted application, cloud-based services are
on the rise. And as any analyst will confirm,
this trend is expected to accelerate over the
coming years.
What does all this mean? It means that
network performance is moving to the top of
the list of mission-critical issues for many
businesses.
Explosion of mobile and
remote workers
Add to this the push companies are making
to enable employees to work remotely, a
trend that has significantly impacted data
networks. Just a few years ago working
from home was limited to a few employees
checking email at night and accessing some
basic applications. This was often a
discouraging exercise as users experienced
long delays while retrieving information.
However, as bandwidths increased, more
dynamic applications became available.
Remote and mobile employees now expect
to simply `dial in' from where ever they
chose rather than enduring a full day at the
office. A recent survey showed that 45 per
cent of business employers believe that
workers are more creative when they are not
tied to one location at work, with a further
50 per cent stating they didn't actually need
people to turn up at nine and go home at
five1.
So how can a business improve the end-
user experience without additional
bandwidth? And how can IT departments
stay within their budget while still
achieving their business directives?
The answer is through WAN (wide area
network) optimisation. A recent survey
conducted amongst 420 IT managers found
that 66 per cent of respondents said that
reducing costs was the key business driver
for server optimisation2. By optimising the
network and thus increasing WAN speeds a
business can improve productivity, reduce
latency, all while avoiding expensive
hardware installations and bandwidth costs.
When employees work away from the
office environment they are likely to use
popular applications for word processing,
spreadsheets, presentations and
collaborating on projects. Some of these
applications are present on their laptops,
while others are network-based. It is
important to note that the end-user is
generally unconcerned whether the
application is local or remote as long as it
performs the necessary task.
For the company, keeping remote workers
productive is a priority and by implementing
WAN optimisation they can accomplish this.
Business values of
optimisation
WAN optimisation has become the standard
for businesses that need faster application
performance across the limited amount of
bandwidth in their networks. In the past
companies resorted to installing expensive
hardware in both data centres and in remote
locations in order to ensure adequate
connectivity. While this would solve the
problem, it was an expensive solution as
networks had to be built to accommodate
peak traffic loads. Anticipating the extent of
this problem, businesses began to look for
alternative solutions. The answer came in
the form of WAN optimisation for business
applications.
At its most basic, application acceleration
is the use of specific technologies
(compression, caching, etc.) to enhance the
performance of applications running on an
IP network (WAN). Application acceleration
can be either a hardware-based or a
software-based solution implemented in
order to provide increased speeds and
decreased latency across a WAN network.
Through the use of WAN optimisation a
business can reduce the amount of data
flowing across a network. And less data
flowing across the network means fewer
delays for end users.
Constraints and pitfalls
As with most new technology
implementations, there are pitfalls to avoid
when choosing an application acceleration
solution. While this may seem
straightforward there are varying methods
of deployment to choose from. For many
businesses the capital cost and logistics of
deployment make it a difficult decision. For
starters, administrators should consider
Taking
optimisation
at face value
Keith Mitchell of Replify Ltd looks at how optimisation can
create the platform for greater efficiency and productivity

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