In 2008, implementing WAN Optimization quickly became one of the top 5 IT goals, with huge budget allocations set aside to support those deployments. The leading provider back then was Riverbed, and it saw its revenues grow from $2.5M in 2004 to $333M in 2009. ROI calculations and related payback periods on bandwidth savings were measured in months, and all organizations with a global footprint paid close attention, studying this technology to determine how much money they would save by compressing the data traversing their WANs.
If you don’t work in IT for a company with multiple offices, you might not know much about WAN optimization. Traditional WAN optimization provided tremendous value through bandwidth reduction and by boosting application performance for chatty applications. For global customers, the need for a reliable private and lossless network was a key ingredient for this solution to work well across geographies.
Traditional WAN Optimization, however, was delivered as a high-cost symmetric appliance solution. Dedicated hardware was required at the home office and each branch, and deployment, maintenance, and management were all cumbersome and costly. As a result, WAN optimization was just too expensive for most of the market.
The mainstream adoption of cloud computing has changed that. Once a luxury addition only for the Fortune 5000, WAN Optimization is now an essential component of all IT strategy due to the growth of enterprise traffic, along with many new types of workloads and applications traversing the WAN.
WAN optimization appliances, once restricted in supply to a couple of vendors, are now available from multiple vendors and in various sizes and delivery formats. The market is rapidly innovating, and any time you see a market in flux, you’ll hear a lot of spin and hear vendors speaking of myths as if they were law.
At Aryaka, we believe in giving customers a solution that solves their problems, rather than tricking them into purchasing something they can’t afford and may not need. As we talk to potential customers, we hear a lot of misperceptions, spin, and blatant falsehoods. Here are the top 5 myths about WAN Optimization that we’ve heard lately, along with the reality:
Myth #1: I don’t need WAN optimization because I’ll solve my problems with bandwidth
The truth: For certain organizations, this is absolutely true, but if you have a global presence and multiple offices, you may be costing yourself money, time, and employee productivity by doing things the old way.
One reason many businesses believe they don’t need WAN Optimization is because the telecom monopolies convince them to simply through more bandwidth at the problem. This line of reasoning says that bandwidth can solve all application performance problems. This is false. Throwing more bandwidth at an application performance problem is likely the most expensive and least effective way to solve WAN performance issues.
Myth #2: I don’t need WAN optimization because my traffic is real-time or encrypted.
The truth: This is outdated, a relic from the appliance era.
Others may believe that WAN Optimization is a poor fit because all their traffic is real-time or encrypted. This used to be a valid point. The traditional appliance-based WAN Optimization solutions couldn’t handle that type of traffic very well, if at all.
However, as the WAN Optimization market has innovated, true global private networks (like Aryaka’s) have emerged, serving as the backbone for other services. Thus, the optimization component is simply part of the cloud-delivery-and-optimization stack and is included as part of the service.
Such a solution benefits all applications. Real-time and encrypted applications benefit from the private low-latency and zero-packet-loss networks with QoS and a full mesh, while chatty or TCP-based applications benefit from the entire intelligent stack of optimization.
Now, there are situations where you don’t really need WAN optimization. Perhaps, your branch office is just on the other side of town, and the broadband connectivity in your area is affordable and reliable. Then, you probably don’t need WAN optimization. Or, perhaps, not much collaboration occurs across the WAN, and you’re sending little dynamic traffic. In such situations, no optimization is necessary. Simple IP VPNs can provide the encryption needed to provide the security necessary for enterprise communication.
Myth #3: WAN Optimization is only possible on-premises with an appliance
The truth: This would have been true in 2004, but we’ve come a long way in the past decade.
Traditionally, WAN optimization was only made available through a group of about 10 appliance vendors; WAN optimization appliances varied in price from $500 for the lower end branch side appliances to upwards of $1,000,000 for datacenter appliances.
Many alternatives exist today to deliver WAN optimization as a cloud-based OpEx service; without any upfront investment. These solutions are available either through a leased model from managed services providers (which may actually be an expensive option) or better still, through cloud-based network services that deliver the benefits of both WAN optimization and private MPLS-like connectivity – without requiring long deployment cycles, long and costly refresh cycles, endless implementation headaches, and expensive maintenance and support contracts.
Myth #4: WAN Optimization virtual appliances are cheaper
The truth: They may be slightly cheaper, but the high cost is about more than the box.
Upfront, a virtual appliance appears cheaper, since you aren’t paying for expensive hardware wrappers. However, virtual appliances are still a more expensive, less responsive option. After all, an appliance is an appliance, and even a virtual one needs resources like memory, processing, and storage to execute the process for which it is designed. What you save in hardware you’ll probably spend in management.
Even when you use virtual appliances instead of their hardware counterparts, the software needs to be able to deliver optimization features like deduplication, TCP optimization for multiple connections, and application proxies. Either way, you’re buying the metal with the software built in, or you’re paying for the two separately and now have to install and manage the software.
The only way around this is to purchase WAN Optimization as a service, so that these deployment and maintenance issues become the service provider’s problem, and not yours. Due to efficiencies of scale and deep expertise, the service provider can handle the deployment, management, and maintenance far more efficiently and cost-effectively than a typical enterprise can ever hope to.
Myth #5: WAN Optimization appliances are a one-time investment
The truth: This is blatantly false, and customers realize it after they buy their appliances and install them!
After the initial purchase of the appliance, WAN Optimization appliances typically have a three- to five-year product cycles, followed by an end of life and/or end of support for that appliance. The vendor expects their customers to refresh their WANs or at a minimum pay for a new maintenance contract with support. Any changes to bandwidth requirements require an upgrade. Maintenance and management are additional expenses, not to mention the constant upgrade cycle for software each time an enterprise application version is adjusted.
Bonus Myth: My WAN Optimization appliance vendor accelerates Cloud Services
The truth: Well, I also have this bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. . .
Up until 5 years ago, the WAN meant headquarters or datacenters connecting to branch offices using IP VPNs or MPLS links with WAN Optimization appliances to make applications run faster.
That was then; today looks much different.
The definition of the WAN has changed to include cloud services, web applications, mobile workers, partners, and customers. On-premises solutions are a misfit in this new architecture. Appliance vendors need to re-invent themselves into this new WAN and are doing so using Frankenstein solutions that are often mislabeled as “cloud” and “virtual” appliances.
Considering the recent pressure on the market, its obvious that one appliance per cloud service per location is just not the right architecture for the redefined enterprise. The cloud implies being universal, present everywhere, and always available. You access the cloud with a couple mouse clicks. That’s it.
A Cloud Network on the other hand brings the concept of a global overlay with optimization built-in, so data can efficiently traverse continents; and it also brings data and applications closer to their user, irrespective of location.
What if you had an option of trying out this Cloud Network in order to see the truth for yourself? A network that you can turn on in an instant, with WAN Optimization simply a built-in feature? A cloud network with global private connectivity across any location, zero capital expenditure, constant visibility and monitoring with 24×7 support included?
Sound good?
Our customers love our cloud network. Visit our Customer page to see what they have to say about this service, and why they regard it as a key competitive advantage.
If you see one of your own competitors on that page, don’t despair. This market is still very new. If you were and still are a bit skeptical, that’s understandable. Technology vendors tend to promise a rocket ship to the moon and stars and then deliver a beat-up biplane. We’ve all been there.
Here’s the Aryaka difference: we won’t ask for a red cent until you’ve taken an actual test drive and seen what our cloud-based global private network with built-in WAN Optimization can do.
Give it a spin. See why Aryaka has 3000 customer sites across 50 countries in 300 cities (and counting). See why our customers are thrilled to have found a simpler, far more cost-effective way to achieve all their business objectives for connecting their offices, their users, and cloud services worldwide. Try us out now, for free and with zero obligation. You’ll be glad you did!
- Sonal
