Email, voice and video are the three methods of business communication which we all rely upon but are now putting considerable strain on the corporate network. Add to this the need to drive down cost by centralising applications and leveraging cloud based applications, and suddenly the corporate wide area network, (WAN), is having to carry a lot more load. This additional load causes congestion on the WAN and subsequently business communication and user productivity can be seriously affected.
Causes of WAN Congestion
As we try and reduce cost and increase efficiency by deploying technologies such as Voice over IP and Video Conferencing, we need to ensure our corporate WAN is capable of delivering these services. The same applies for consolidation and the adoption of cloud applications. Cost savings can be huge if we are able to successfully centralise all of our key business line applications. Removing the need to administer applications and data on individual user’s machines and enabling apps to be delivered from a single copy in a single location equates to massive savings in time and administration. If we are also able to incorporate cloud based apps into this strategy then savings can be further amplified.
However, if these services don’t perform as good as or better than their predecessors then user resistance will mount to a sufficient level to ensure such initiatives are shelved or considerably improved.
Recreational video use on the WAN
Video used to be confined to the realms of the consumer world with corporate communications taking a more traditional approach. Until recently if the CEO wanted to address the organisation with, the latest company results or strategy this would be achieved by posting an update on the corporate intranet or communicated via email. Now it is not uncommon for the CEO to address the organisation by way of a pre recorded or live streamed video. Sales and product training is now often delivered by video to create a more interactive learning experience.
Of course recreational video use will always be prevalent and companies increasingly need to consider how all of this video content is managed across the WAN. Video content is incredibly bandwidth hungry. A single iPlayer stream will consume anywhere from 500k to 1.2Mbps and the emergence of HD video online will only increase this.
Strategies for WAN Optimisation
With all of these applications and content fighting for bandwidth across the WAN we need to reduce congestion to optimise the delivery of applications to ensure user productivity is maintained, or ideally, increased. There are several ways we can achieve this with one of the most successful being the use of WAN optimisation technologies.
Voyager have had a focus on networking solutions for many years and during this time have partnered with Blue Coat Systems to deliver WAN optimisation solutions. Using a variety of techniques, the Blue Coat Mach 5 solution serves to optimise the WAN to ensure it is capable of delivering the variety of applications and data demanded by businesses today. Protocol optimisation, compression, caching, and intelligent video stream splitting, all combine to create one of the most advanced WAN optimisation products available today.
If you need to enable your WAN to be capable of handling today’s variety of traffic, it’s probably wise to speak with Voyager about how we can assist with Blue Coat Mach5.
