As you likely know, an application’s potential performance is limited by the network’s performance. Bottlenecks, excessive hops, long distances, inefficient protocols, heavy usage, and other factors can severely impact the flow of data across the WAN. When the WAN underperforms, applications access over the WAN simply cannot live up to their full potential. 

It’s not just a simple matter of app performance. An underperforming WAN can lead to frustrated employees, users, and customers. It can severely impact productivity and result in a loss of revenue. WAN optimization solves this by prioritizing traffic and ensuring that mission critical applications have a guaranteed amount of bandwidth available at all times.

WAN optimization streamlines connectivity and network efficiency. Many techniques are used to optimize a WAN, many in conjunction with one another. Common WAN optimization methods include: bandwidth management, compression, deduplication, latency optimization, caching/proxy, protocol spoofing, replication, forward error correction, equalizing/prioritizing, connect limits, sample rate limits, and traffic shaping. WAN optimization can also block or divert undesirable traffic as well as prioritize certain hosts. 

When the WAN is optimized, the benefits begin to accumulate. Below are a few of the benefits of WAN optimization:

• Improved application performance. With a clear path across the WAN free of traffic bottlenecks and other inefficiencies, application performance improves dramatically.
• Improved productivity. Faster performance means improved productivity. Every second counts! Imagine the productivity boost when an application responds ten times faster.
• Faster file access. Caching files locally results in faster file access to users around the globe.
• Improved business continuity – Replication and WAN optimization can improve business continuity by ensuring that should disaster strike a portion of your enterprise, the remote site can quickly recover.
• Limited hardware costs. WAN optimization solutions do not generally require an investment in hardware. For example, WAN Optimization as a Service allows you to accelerate business-critical applications using an “as a service” pricing model. With such a model, it becomes possible to accelerate network and application performance without investing in hardware.

Improved performance, better disaster recovery, improved productivity, and reduced IT costs are but a few of the many benefits of WAN optimization. Isn’t it time you optimized your WAN?

Sources:

1. “How Will WAN Optimization Help My Network?” from Webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/how_will_wan_optimization_help_my_network.html.

2. “WAN Optimization Solutions” from Aryaka: http://www.aryaka.com/solutions/.