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WAN Optimization as a Service Can Accelerate Your Branch Office Server Consolidation Project

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TMCnews Featured Article


February 24, 2011

WAN Optimization as a Service Can Accelerate Your Branch Office Server Consolidation Project

By Jaclyn Allard, TMCnet Web Editor


One of the largest and most common money-saving projects that enterprises embark on is server consolidation, moving branch office servers to a central data center. Cost savings and concerns over data security have made server consolidation a top priority in IT. Eliminating servers at the edge of the network and consolidating them in the datacenter significantly lowers management and monitoring costs. Having a single repository of data within an organization that can be controlled in a central spot simplifies data security and meets regulatory requirements.


Server consolidation saves on hardware cost and software licenses and provides a greener and lower-cost solution because it requires less power and cooling. Disaster recovery and maintenance becomes easier, as well, because the servers easily fit into the data center’s disaster-recovery scheme and are located in one place.

But with pros also exist cons. The problem with a server consolidation project is its effect on the Wide Area Network (WAN). Data that was local to the user and retrieved over a high-speed local area network (LAN) now must cross the WAN. This means that bandwidth must be increased, but increased speed will not solve response-time problems. This is where a Wan Optimization as a Service provider comes in, as its solutions can enable accelerated delivery and guaranteed performance of business critical applications and services within virtualized WAN environments and across distributed enterprise infrastructures.

Without the implementation of such a WAN optimization solution, server consolidation can turn from positive transition to negative nightmare. Server consolidations without WAN optimization can mean user dissatisfaction, lost productivity and data security issues when users compensate by downloading and storing important data locally instead of a central site. Therefore, a WAN optimization as a service provider, such as Expand Networks (News - Alert), should be considered for its  complete solution for file server consolidation that combines Wide Area File Services (WAFS) with a holistic approach to WAN Optimization and application acceleration.

The benefits of implementing such a solution include:

  • Separates WAFS and other WAN optimization technologies in the data center
  • Improves ROI and reduces costs by making server replacements and WAN upgrades unnecessary
  • Presents LAN-like performance over the WAN
  • Protects business critical applications through Quality of Service

In related news, Expand Networks, unveiled its latest Accelerator operating system, AOS 7.0.1, which runs across the company’s full range of physical and virtual Accelerator solutions. Designed to further enhance the user experience in high-latency satellite environments, the AOS 7.0.1 also enables integration with Red Hat’s (News - Alert) kernel-based Virtual Machine solution, as well as assists in the integration of third party tools to provide improved visibility, control, ease of use and configuration capabilities.


Jaclyn Allard is a TMCnet Web Editor. She most recently worked on the production team at Juran Institute, a quality consulting firm producing its own training and marketing materials. Previously, she interned at Curbstone Press, a nonprofit publishing press in Willimantic, CT, and fulfilled the role of Editor-in-Chief for the literature and arts journal published by the University of Connecticut. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard







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