acceleration

WANs across the water, WAN optimization across the seas

Just like other technology sectors, the WAN optimization market has been battered by the recession and a cautious reluctance by IT types to spend any significant money on network upgrades. Nevertheless, the WAN optimization market has survived and even (relatively) thrived in this tough and bitter economy, with sales hitting about $226 million in Q1 this year.

Things are just as tough outside the U.S., although the picture is a tad brighter in Asia-Pacific countries (including Japan), which had experienced a 21% yearly growth until declining to 13.3% this year. They still chalked up revenues of US$279.6 million, according to our friends at Frost & Sullivan. The market researcher expects growth to rocket to 22.2% next year and hit US$831.6 million by 2015.*

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From the WAN Mailbag: Encryption, MPLS, optimization and more

One of the benefits of online publishing, as opposed to traditional paper and ink methods, is the Internet provides a more capable (and sometimes culpable) two-way street in terms of getting readers involved in the information purveyance process.

Social computing networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Plaxo add to the interaction by channeling bits of information to specific user communities, or providing a faster and more effective route to important and useful articles. Over the past few weeks, we have received a number of comments from readers on various topics related to WANs and networking. The following is a quick taste and excerpts of what some of our readers are saying.

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On the subject of WAN-based encryption technologies:

Wouldn’t it be more prudent to encrypt data when it is written, so no data integrity is compromised? This way data can traverse the WAN, public or private, without compromise.

It is about centralized control and management. WAN throughput might be impacted, since most WAN optimizers need to cache or manipulate data for some type of acceleration. If the data has already been compressed or encrypted or de-duped, how do you optimize it? Continued »

Reading the writing on the WAN wall

One of the more vexing issues facing network managers today is how to cost effectively tweak a WAN to keep up with the rising number of remote workers and increasing reliance on branch office activities and technology capabilities.

On the one hand, companies are trying to centralize IT and network operations to maintain costs and simplify operations. On the other, there is an effort to provide more operational autonomy to branch offices, as they become the ‘frontline’ conduits for mission critical information and access to customers and suppliers.

This is an issue we continue to cover in the digital pages of SearchEnterpriseWAN.com, most recently in an article that looks at the trend to avoid costly WAN appliances in favor of WAN virtualization and software, and in profiles of major global companies like Carhartt, Inc., which is taking an “old school” but nonetheless successful approach, and deploying optimization appliances at critical branch offices.
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