Wide areas networks (WANs) are essential to the majority of businesses, connecting remote locations and individuals back to centralized IT resources. But as the network is expected to handle more bandwidth intensive applications such as voice and video it is essential to ensure the WAN usage is well managed – eliminating unwanted traffic and accelerating business content.
QUOCIRCA BRIEFING June 2007 A short guide to a faster WAN Contacts: Wide Area Network Security and Acceleration Bob Tarzey Wide areas networks (WANs) are essential to the majority of businesses, connecting Quocirca Ltd Tel +44 1753 855794 remote locations and individuals back to centralised IT resources. But as the bob.tarzey@quocirca.com network is expected to handle more bandwidth intensive applications such as voice Rob Bamforth and video it is essential to ensure the WAN usage is well managed - eliminating Quocirca Ltd unwanted traffic and accelerating business content Tel +44 1962 849746 rob.bamforth@quocirca.com . The majority of businesses deploy wide area networks (WANs) to connect the remote parts of the business back to centralised resources For most a private network is unaffordable so they rely on virtual private networks across shared public infrastructure, predominantly the internet . Internet traffic continues to grow apace, doubling in volume and speed every two years The applications driving this growth such as voice and video communications B RIEFING NOTE: are more bandwidth hungry This briefing has been .written by Quocirca to Achieving high performance across public networks is paramount for address certain issues ensuring individuals and business processes are productive faced by businesses as they This requires getting access to priority bandwidth - which has a cost - and become more and more reliant on wide area making sure that employees are using that bandwidth productively network communications. . Unnecessary traffic needs to be stopped The report draws on This includes junk email and unproductive end-user activity on the internet but Quocirca's knowledge of the technology and also ensuring that business applications running over the WAN are not too chattybusiness issues faced by organisations in this area . The "wanted" traffic needs to be accelerated and provides advice on the Using compression, local caching, stream splitting and other techniques it is approaches that can be possible to accelerate "good" data to remote users and reduce the overall use of taken to create a more effective and efficient bandwidth WAN for future growth. . Don't try and do it all at once, address the fundamentals first During the preparation of Make sure the best affordable connections are in use, that they are secure and this report, Quocirca has spoken to a number end reliable, that the whole network is moving wanted data as quickly as possible users and vendors and is and that employees are not wasting time online grateful for their time and insights. Conclusions A high performance WAN is a key part of the foundation on which today's Quocirca would like to thank Blue Coat for its businesses are built. It enables flexible working, which increasingly carries an sponsorship of this report. environmental message, underpins sound business processes and enables effective communications within organisations and with customers, partners and suppliers. Failure to address WAN performance issues will be to the detriment of most other areas of a business's activity.
An independent briefing by Quocirca Ltd. www.quocirca.com WAN Security and Acceleration Page 2
The congested internet But such applications consume huge amounts of The commercial world has bandwidth and, although the capacity of the undergone a revolution in internet has at times seemed limitless, the the last 15 years driven by problem will move beyond local bottlenecks to a the direct electronic jamming of the main arteries if something is not connection of most done. Of course, more bandwidth can be added, businesses and many but this has a cost, and investors will not want to consumers via the internet. lose their shirts again paying for upgraded This revolution has infrastructure as they did in the late 1990s. changed the way various Private physical IP links connect the different entities communicate with each other, allowed parts of some businesses together, but this is even more flexible working practices and enabled the more expensive than adding shared bandwidth creation of whole new ... [download for more]
