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Gain Maximum WAN and LAN Performance

Michael HochResearch DirectorAberdeen Group

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Agenda

Pressing Priorities of IT

Ramping up the LAN

Optimizing the WAN

Conclusions and Recommendations

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Since 1988, Aberdeen Group’s research initiatives and positioning services address technology selection, evaluation, and justification needs

of enterprise technology buyers and supplier organizations.

Aberdeen Group

Established Technologies

Emerging Technologies

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Pressing Priorities of IT

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CEO: Improve Productivity

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CFO: Do More with Less

Source: Aberdeen Group, Sept 2003

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IT: Centralize Applications

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IT: Leverage the Internet

Zone 1Zone 2

Zone 3

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Multinational Advertising Firm

• Ad creation involves 200 employees in 8 regional offices

• Contention with VoIP, Web, and “unknown”

Q: How to prioritize business applications?

Nationwide Law Firm

• 800 employees in 5 US cities w/ varying bandwidth and

costs

• Time-sensitive applications centrally hosted

Q: How to ensure real-time access to centralized apps

for everyone?

Users: “Why Is My App So SLOW?”

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Fortune 500 Financial Services Firm

• Roll out Voice over IP to 30,000-plus employees

worldwide

• Optimize mixed traffic over multiple links

Q: How to efficiently balance traffic across WAN

and LAN?

Users: “Why Is My App So SLOW?” (Continued)

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Applications and Platforms in the Mix

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Advanced Applications Tax Bandwidth…B

andw

idth

Requir

ed

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Inte

ract

ivit

y…and Require Interactivity

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Ramping Up the LAN

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Server Scalability

Data Center Complexity

Traffic Management

Security Processing Demands

LAN Implications of IT Priorities

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Move to “real-time” enterprise network

Decrease capital expense

Lower ongoing operation costs

Simplify trouble shooting

Fast deployment of new services

Goals of LAN Optimization

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Locating the LAN Bottlenecks

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Build a new data center/increase bandwidth

• Too expensive, time consuming, and absolutely not necessary

Deploy an eCDN

• Purchase, install, and own a delivery network

• Performance benefits of caching

• Standard offerings do not impact dynamic applications

Engage a service provider

• Offload application hosting and delivery

• Entire, partial, component options available

• Best for high volumes, wide distances or unpredictable access rates

Existing Alternatives

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Emerging LAN Options Font-ending Server Processes

• Object and page caching (static and dynamic)

• Application component caching

• Server-offload appliances

Security Processing Latency

• Firewall aggregation platforms

• Specialized security appliances

• Security aggregation solutions

Traffic Capacity Bottlenecks

• Static and dynamic caching

• TCP connection management

• Integrated networking appliances

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Proliferation of Network Elements

WAN or Internet

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Security is Not Less Complex

WAN or Internet

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Consolidation of Network Elements

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Situation

• Major Enterprise Software Manufacturer with Web-based PeopleSoft

CRM

Problem

• Connection and security latency caused transactions to time-out

Solution

• Consolidated load balancers, caching, and connection management

• Dynamic content caching in front of PeopleSoft application servers

• Average response time less than 1 second

• Investment of $50,000 made $5 million application useable

Illustration: Move to Web-based CRM

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Optimizing the WAN

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Bandwidth capacity problems

Application contention

Little visibility into real WAN usage

Poor user performance

WAN Implications of IT Priorities

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Locating the WAN Bottlenecks

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Increase WAN Capacity Thresholds

Accelerate Remote User Performance

Simplify LAN-to-WAN/DMZ

Improve Access via Internet

WAN Optimization Goals

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Network Deployment – Caching

Caching

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Network Deployment – Compression

Compression

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Network Deployment – Shaping

Traffic Shaping

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Network Deployment – Route ControlRoute Control

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What to Distribute:• Static and on-demand content accessed by many users

• Streaming content (via multicast)

• Application components

How to Distribute:• Internal CDNs

• Content delivery network (CDN) service

Offload application traffic to external network

Increase performance without additional infrastructure

Convert capital investment to monthly expense

Distributing Application Components

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Situation

• Regional bank w/23 branches using AS400 teller app and Citrix

• OWA in Exchange

Problem

• WAN traffic taxed T1 links

• Teller app and OWA slower than Exchange

Solution

• Caching & WAN capacity management

• 20-50ms response time for tellers

• Completely avoided costly WAN upgrades

Illustration: Banking App & E-mail

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Situation

• International financial services firm

• Trading applications, email, and credit card clearing central

• Voice over IP over same network

Problem

• WAN stretched to capacity

• VoIP quality hurt by other traffic

Solution

• WAN capacity management and traffic shaping

• All traffic optimized, with some application prioritized

• VoIP to all of Latin America, rolling to Europe

Illustration: Financial Services and VoIP

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Case Study: Lastminute.com

Zone 1Zone 2

Zone 3

Branches and

Partners

External Customers

eCDN

eCDNeCDN

eCDN

eCDN

eCDN ADN

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Conclusions and Recommendations

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Assess own needs BEFORE going out

for solutions

Look at bandwidth/servers LAST

Talk to your friends and peers

Test before you buy

Focus on getting results quickly

Look for centralized management

Conclusions and Recommendations

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Free Reports at Aberdeen.com• Buyer’s Guide to Managed Delivery

• Buyer’s Guide to Multifunction Networking and Security

Solutions

Free Webinars at Aberdeen.com• WAN Optimization

• Network and Application Performance

• Advantages of Compression on the WAN

• Server-side Optimization Strategies (forthcoming)

Other Resources

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Q & A

Michael HochResearch Director, Aberdeen GroupPhone: 617-854-5245Email: michael.hoch@aberdeen.com