Depending on who you ask, the WAN acceleration marketing is either coming to a screeching halt or it’s rapidly accelerating. While both sides make valid points, one thing is crystal clear: today’s WAN acceleration market is vastly different than the market of yesteryear.

Is the WAN Acceleration Market Slowing Down?

According to an article on Network Computing, it’s shrinking. The article’s author discusses results from several reports and offers his own insights as to why the market for WAN acceleration is slowing. For example, one of the reports showed a bump in WAN acceleration but concluded that the bump was temporary and that WAN acceleration remained on a downward trajectory.

Some of the arguments suggesting a likely market slowdown include:

• Cheap bandwidth – The cost of bandwidth continues to drop, making it feasible for enterprises to invest in additional bandwidth instead of WAN acceleration.
• A transition from WAN services to Internet connections – Many services that previously required access via the WAN can now be accessed via the public Internet, a much cheaper, albeit less reliable, option.
• Resistance to more capital and operational expenses – WAN acceleration typically requires serious capital investments as well as ongoing operational costs. Not only that, it could take a year or more before enterprises see a return on their investments. 
• Improvements in technology – New protocols and applications are more efficient than ever. Since WAN acceleration originated as a workaround to poor technologies, the author concludes that improvements in application technology makes the WAN acceleration industry less relevant.

Is the WAN Acceleration Market Accelerating?

Is buying more bandwidth, moving to the public Internet, shunning solutions due to cost concerns, and relying on application developers to use the latest protocols the answer to sluggish WAN performance? Aryaka’s customers don’t think so. According to a blog post by Larry Chaffin, Chairman and CEO of Pluto Cloud Services, CIOs are indeed leaving WAN acceleration appliance vendors behind. However, they’re not abandoning the WAN acceleration market; they’re simply moving to a better WAN acceleration model.

WAN acceleration appliances are quickly becoming outdated. As the Network Computing article pointed out, many companies are frustrated by the capital expenses and yearly maintenance costs associated with traditional WAN acceleration appliances. By switching to Aryaka’s WAN Optimization-as-a-Service, companies can leave their frustrations with WAN acceleration appliances behind and enjoy the benefits of an optimized WAN:

• A fraction of the cost of expensive global MPLS
• A better return on investment and pricing than global MPLS
• No need for costly hardware
• No need for costly appliance upgrades each year or yearly maintenance
• Bandwidth on demand
• Application acceleration and a direct connection to Amazon Web Services
• Mobile, global workforce acceleration with no software, licenses or capital expenses
• A fully managed international network

Is the WAN acceleration marketing slowing down or speeding up? We believe the market for WAN acceleration appliances is definitely declining thanks to the much better alternative from Aryaka. While demand for WAN acceleration appliances is declining, demand for WAN Optimization-as-a-Service is on the rise.

Works Cited:

1. Network Computing, “WAN Acceleration Slows Down,” – http://www.networkcomputing.com/applications/wan-acceleration-slows-down/a/d-id/1234405?

2. Aryaka, “CIOs Leaving WAN Acceleration Appliance Vendors Behind,” – http://www.aryaka.com/cios-leaving-wan-acceleration-appliance-vendors-behind/