Gain Maximum WAN and LAN Performance

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Gain Maximum WAN and LAN Performance

• Michael Hoch
• Research Director
• Aberdeen 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 Groups research initiatives
and positioning services address technology
selection, evaluation, and justification needs
of enterprise technology buyers and supplier
organizations.
Aberdeen Group
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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 1
Zone 2
Zone 3
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Users Why Is My App So SLOW?

• 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?

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Users Why Is My App So SLOW? (Continued)

• 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?

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Applications and Platforms in the Mix
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Advanced Applications Tax Bandwidth
Bandwidth Required
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and Require Interactivity
Interactivity
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Ramping Up the LAN
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LAN Implications of IT Priorities

• Server Scalability
• Data Center Complexity
• Traffic Management
• Security Processing Demands

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Goals of LAN Optimization

• Move to real-time enterprise network
• Decrease capital expense
• Lower ongoing operation costs
• Simplify trouble shooting
• Fast deployment of new services

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Locating the LAN Bottlenecks
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Existing Alternatives

• 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

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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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Illustration Move to Web-based CRM

• 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

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Optimizing the WAN
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WAN Implications of IT Priorities

• Bandwidth capacity problems
• Application contention
• Little visibility into real WAN usage
• Poor user performance

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Locating the WAN Bottlenecks
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WAN Optimization Goals

• Increase WAN Capacity Thresholds
• Accelerate Remote User Performance
• Simplify LAN-to-WAN/DMZ
• Improve Access via Internet

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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 Control
Route Control
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Distributing Application Components

• 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

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Illustration Banking App E-mail

• 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

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Illustration Financial Services and VoIP

• 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

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Case Study Lastminute.com
Branches and Partners
Zone 1
Zone 2
Zone 3
External Customers
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Conclusions and Recommendations
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Conclusions and Recommendations

• 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

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Other Resources

• Free Reports at Aberdeen.com
• Buyers Guide to Managed Delivery
• Buyers 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)

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Q A

• Michael Hoch
• Research Director, Aberdeen Group
• Phone [phone]
• Email michael.hoch_at_aberdeen.com