Today the Wide Area Network (WAN) has become the backbone of small and large business houses. Now with a variety of broadband technologies competing for market share, high-performance WAN links have become cost-effective. However, the increasing demands on these pipes often outrun their capacity. Though augmenting WAN capacity is not a tedious task, but still the overall cost involved is much higher. That is the reason why WAN optimization is widely gaining popular grounds. As through WAN optimization appliances one can make an efficient use of existing connections and can even expect a better network performance.

Types Of WAN Optimization Technologies
WAN optimization, sometimes known as WAN acceleration devices use innovative technologies to enhance network performance. The first set of techniques widely used are caching and compression, where the focus is on helping data-centric tasks, such as remote file access or data replication. Protocol-specific optimization and traffic management are the other techniques which target improved application performance for such common tools as Outlook or real-time communications such as VoIP.

However, the latest WAN optimization appliances depend on more sophisticated techniques for caching local data. With technological improvement caching is more or less becoming data reduction. It is so because, traditional caches only operate on objects, such as single files, Web pages, or images, but on the other hand the data reduction technology can identify loose data within huge file blocks or network packets.

Among other acceleration techniques, the protocol-specific optimizations are used to increase performance of 'chatty' protocols like CIFS (Common Internet File System; Windows file sharing) and MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface). Another optimization technique is the traffic management. It is used to prioritize different types of packets through QoS techniques, such as traffic classification, queuing, and rate shaping.

Major Vendors & Products
The Riverbed Steelhead line and Juniper Networks, WX and WXC appliances are largely regarded as the top notch WAN optimization appliances. The Riverbed, models 50 and 100, are mainly meant for small offices, whereas 6020 is designed for large data centers. However, Silver Peak, is another vendor who offers a range of models from the small-office NX-2500 to the enterprise-class NX-8500. They provide a superior WAN optimization solution and have the ability to scale to more than 500Mbps.

A fantastic alternative appliance for increasing the WAN acceleration is offered by XRoads Networks. Using a best-path routing algorithm, its ActiveDNS can increase throughput and reliability. The XRoads also offers an optional integrated unified threat management module that obviates the need for a dedicated firewall or content filter. However, the XRoads appliances though incorporate inline data compression, various TCP optimizations and QoS, they don’t include any local storage for data reduction.

Finding the Right Fit

The high-performance networks are increasingly becoming a crucial utility for larger businesses including, small businesses and branch offices. Now it is the task of the buyers to find the right solution that meets their demands. For achieving the most in this fast paced market, the call of the hour is to be always up and running. But with a slow or unreliable WAN link, it surely would be a distant dream. There are a staggering number of vendors in the present market with WAN optimization products that can further your network performance. The latest innovations and developments in the WAN optimization offer products that are suitable both for a small business and larger one. It is indeed a stuffed market, however, the buyers must decide on the appliance accessing them on factors like optimization, scalability, security and mobility.

This article has been written by an expert at Tredent data systems.