In a recent article written by Ann Bednarz at Network World, WAN optimization: New form factors, multi-function appliances on tap, experts say, a number of players in the WAN optimization market spoke out on what they consider optimization and acceleration trends for 2009. Ann spoke with product and market facing executives from Silver Peak Systems, Strangeloop Networks, and Juniper Networks among others. They offered great insight into how the current economy is shaping market demand.
I love learning from experts in the market, so if you’re like me the opinions of these executives could be a great launching point to team conversations, project planning, or revisiting your own plans for 2009. Their comments are likely tied to their individual research and particular product capabilities, but taken as a whole may bring value to your team, project, or company. Some issues mentioned include cost reduction; customer retention; supporting high performing web applications; quantitative metrics for measuring results of IT investments; and serving a more distributed end-user constituency.
I found this excerpt particularly interesting:
Mark Urban, senior director of product marketing at Blue Coat Systems, predicts that enterprises will demand better management tools going forward. “As IT managers are squeezed by budgets and the constant need for greater bandwidth capacity, they will demand better visibility into applications on the network,” Urban says. “With a granular level of visibility into applications, IT managers can make smarter management and optimization decisions. This drive to more efficient network resource planning is all contingent upon management visibility.”
Clearly business goals are shifting, or evolving, to maintain a competitive edge while ensuring strong results or, let’s be honest, even survival at the end of this economic downturn. What is your IT team doing to contribute to business critical goals? Is WAN optimization part of the plan? How do you expect it to impact business operations?
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Shunra APM blog post Future Looks Bright For WAN Optimization/Acceleration Market: In a rece.. http://tinyurl.com/bc98e2
February 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Yes – visibility into about how the the optimized bandwidth is being used and applied to business needs is critical. Virtualized pipes that are optimized go hand in hand with virtualized servers, storage and all the other virtualized-resource-du-jour.
In this ‘cute’ video vignette … I talk about how bandwidth can be virtualized – http://www.digitalmediagalaxy.com/2009/02/04/optimize-your-bandwidth/
That said .. most network optimization technology operates at a low level in the network level such that the resources cannot be virtualized and applied where they need to be – at the application / person / department / functional area.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:04 am
If I may add to this post. We found that degradation in bandwidth performance across networks, can lead to significant productivity loss. We found that In order to be sure that no unwanted traffic / network abuse /network attack is happening at any point in time. Strong network visibility must be ensured at all times by utilizing the following key aspects:
•Ensuring optimal bandwidth for critical applications
•Quickly and proactively troubleshoot any network incidents – finding the root cause of problem.
•Being able accurately measure capacity planning for future application deployment
•Ensuring the QoS delivered by the ISP in line with the terms of the agreement
•Forecast and extrapolate bandwidth consumption over a period of time
•Provide a Global view of all external sites across geographical network layout
Knowledge of traffic across a network and what causes bandwidth consumption can help determine behavioral anomalies and a better understanding of what goes on across an entire network infrastructure. This sort of information is crucial to the network administrators in order to enforce appropriate policies to restrict undesired bandwidth usage.