WAN optimization devices have become a common solution for moving data between remote offices and a centralized data center. This kind of “Branch WAN” data traffic, typically involves applications like email, file access and collaboration. Each of these small traffic use cases can benefit from WAN optimization. Large data center to data center WAN traffic is another story. This kind of “Big Traffic” is creating a problem for these Branch WAN optimization tools and it may be time for a different approach.

Big Traffic involves a different data profile, one that typically has fewer connections but much higher bandwidth per connection. Examples can be remote backups, replication and often machine-to-machine transfers that are ‘bursty’ in nature. In these data center to data center use cases the time required to complete a data transfer is the key success metric, for example, getting a nightly backup to the DR site.

For this reason, latency is the problem that needs to be solved and effectively handling Big Traffic requires a WAN optimization solution that’s designed to reduce latency. Unfortunately, many WAN optimization devices don’t address this issue. In fact, the data reduction techniques they rely on to save bandwidth can actually increase latency.

Another issue is scalability. Big Traffic scenarios involve much higher bandwidth per connection than Branch WAN traffic. In order to handle this throughput users often need multiple WAN optimization devices connected through load balancers or complex policies upstream to channel data to each box.  

Big Traffic is different than Branch WAN traffic and requires a different solution than the traditional WAN optimization device, one that can reduce latency and scale without complex and expensive multi-unit configurations. But many users don’t know the right questions to ask when evaluating these solutions.

In this revealing webinar, George Crump is joined by Haseeb Budhani, Chief Product Officer from Infineta, to discuss Big Traffic and help users learn the truth about WAN optimization. They’ll also uncover the five questions that WAN optimization vendors hope you won’t ask:

1. Can you scale TCP flows to at least 1Gbps speeds?
   

2. Does a 10Gbps NIC mean 10Gbps of throughput?
   

3. Could your WAN optimization device be doubling the effective application latency?
   

4. Will your WAN optimization solution scale as my network bandwidth grows?
   

5. What happens to data reduction ratios as the network speed increases?
   

Infineta Systems is a client of Storage Switzerland

previous entry: “Unified All-Flash Storage System”