TMCnet Feature

The last few ITEXPO (News - Alert) conferences have been dominated by the cloud, and ITEXPO East 2012 will be no different. The conference, set to kick off today in Miami, will provide attendees with a myriad of keynotes, presentations and information sessions dedicated to current and future cloud technologies.

One of the busiest presenters at this year's show will surely be Nikesh Kalra, Director of Business Development at Aryaka Networks, who will help lead four sessions – all of which will involve the cloud in some way.

Aryaka is one of the companies helping to push WAN optimization into the cloud, thus eliminating the need for costly on-premise hardware appliances and dedicated MPLS links. Kalra talked about the benefits of cloud-based WAN optimization – and a number of other hot topics in the tech space – during a recent interview with TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani.

Kalra says that cloud-based WAN optimization is gaining traction in the market because it costs less and is much easier and quicker to deploy than legacy alternatives like WAN optimization appliances. WAN optimization-as-a-service also provides burstability and elastic capacity that allows businesses to scale their infrastructure as they grow, he added.

In addition, Kalra says that cloud-based WAN optimization helps to eliminate a number of common barriers, including unreliable connectivity, poor application performance and latency fluctuation, among others.

Kalra believes that 2011 was the year of the tire-kicker for the cloud. "But that's going to change in 2012," he says, as "performance, manageability, scalability and cost will dominate."

Check out the complete interview below or head to one of Kalra's ITEXPO sessions: Calculating ROI Strategies for Cloud Solutions; Capitalizing on the Potential of Cloud Services; Enterprise 2.0 Technologies and Architectures: A Critical Review; and In the Year 2036: How Cloud Computing Will Change IT for the Next 25 Years.

What was the most significant technological advancement in the past 12 months and why?

For us, it was bringing to the market the industry’s first Quality of Service (QoS) assurance for WAN optimization-as-a-service. This is important because companies can prioritize their critical applications, such as voice and video, which are rapidly becoming the largest volumes of traffic moving across global networks. 

With integrated QoS for an optimized network in the cloud, customers can assign a class of service (up to five classes) to each type of traffic or application on their network.

Existing WAN optimization solutions, with appliances at each enterprise location, are typically interconnected over an IP network through multiple providers. End-to-end QoS is subject to implementation and interpretation at each hop between providers. Not all providers honor QoS configuration, and those that do honor QoS are not consistent, leading to an overall lower quality of service for business-critical applications.

A cloud-based WAN optimization-as-a-service and the globally deployed network that is a part of the service, along with integral granular QoS, does away with the need for MPLS and appliances entirely. Companies can turn IT assets from CAPEX into OPEX (News - Alert) and save time, money and get things done faster to be more competitive and win new business.

Unlike providers of appliance-based WAN optimization, Aryaka owns and manages the global network infrastructure. This means we can deliver end-to-end assurance of service and performance through consistent interpretation and implementation across all applications and all locations.

MPLS is needed for legacy WAN optimization appliances to function optimally, but it is extremely costly to deploy, takes months to provision, is highly complex to administer and is fraught with performance issues. Aryaka replaces the need for MPLS and WAN optimization appliances, instead delivering the functionality as a service.

What has been the biggest trend in your market segment and how is it impacting your customers?

WAN optimization appliance vendors have started to speed the pace of their deployment in the face of new cloud-based competition, and are rebranding their older solutions as “cloud” or “WAN optimization-as-a-service” and dropping their prices in an attempt to stay competitive.

• Aryaka is a simpler and easier-to-deploy solution and eliminates the need for complex and costly hardware appliances or dedicated MPLS links.
• Aryaka can be deployed and go live in hours versus weeks and months for traditional WAN optimization techniques.
• Aryaka built burstability and elastic capacity into the platform, allowing customers the ability to scale their business as needed instead of acquiring fixed-capacity MPLS networks and complex appliances.

What is the biggest challenge facing your customers today and how is your company helping address that challenge?

Our customers were facing four key challenges that we have resolved.

• Connectivity (Bandwidth) – Unreliable connectivity remains a huge challenge in certain regions of the world today. Aryaka’s WAN-optimized and application acceleration solution, delivered as a service, provides our customers with the network connectivity and performance needed to do business anywhere in the world.
• Applications – On top of resolving the connectivity issue, we removed the obstacles that created poor application performance. Our WAN Delivery Network service (AryakaWDN), accelerates the delivery of business applications up to 100X, both inside and outside of the firewall.
• Replication, Migration and Disaster Recovery –Before Aryaka, our customers would spend days performing back-ups and data replication. With the AryakaWDN service, replication, migration and disaster recovery time is reduced to minutes rather than days.
• Cloud Access and Cloud Storage – Our customers were challenged by the latency fluctuation and inherent inefficiencies they experienced in accessing cloud services across the Internet. The AryakaWDN service has resolved all of the connectivity and latency issues, enabling successful access to the cloud, and, just as important, we have removed the barriers of leveraging cloud storage. Aryaka is the first and only company to remove the barriers to cloud access, improving productivity for our customers across all verticals.

How has the cloud impacted your business? How has it impacted your customers?

Aryaka was created as the world’s first company to resolve the challenges of poor network connectivity and application performance – inside or outside of the firewall. By leveraging our WAN optimization solution, our customers are able to reliably and quickly access cloud services. As discussed above, we have removed the barrier to cloud access for our customers.

Will cloud-based communications expedite the end of the premises-based PBX (News - Alert) market?

Yes, the AryakaWDN service removes the latency fluctuations in accessing cloud services across the Internet. Also, our solution is today delivering VoIP traffic in real time and without delays. As more and more companies adopt truly optimized cloud services to reduce their operating expenses, it’s only a matter of time before the premises-based PBX market becomes an optional and very expensive single point solution.

What approach has your business taken to social media? If you have implemented a social media program, have you been able to evaluate your program’s success?

We participate in social media to engage in the conversation around the challenges that enterprises face when globalizing their business and experiencing decreased productivity.

Does every business need a social media presence? Why or why not?

We can’t speak for other companies, but if you want to know what people are talking about, you need to be a part of the conversation.

With Microsoft (News - Alert) touting tight integration between its mobile and desktop OS, can it become a major competitor in the enterprise mobile market?

We can’t speak for Microsoft. We do think that there will be more competition in the enterprise mobile market as the proliferation of devices continues to accelerate globally at an exponential growth.

What can attendees expect from your company at ITEXPO?

We’re looking forward to engaging with attendees who are struggling with the challenges that I outlined above. Aryaka has removed the complexity, high cost and application performance limitations that are associated with older solutions like WAN optimization appliances or MPLS links. We are helping our customers improve business productivity with an easily deployed and affordable solution.

Make one technology prediction for 2012 and consider its impact.

When it comes to moving enterprise apps to the cloud, 2011 was the year of the tire-kicker. Compelling ROI models presented by cloud app providers could not quite overcome the insecurity of CIOs when they considered placing their apps in the hands of a third party. But that's going to change in 2012. Why? Performance, manageability, scalability and cost will dominate. Ask a CIO to pit in-house vs. cloud on those factors. For 90 percent of the applications it will be no contest. Advantage, cloud.

Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend the Cloud Communications Expo, collocated with TMC’s ITEXPO East 2012, happening NOW, in Miami, FL. The Cloud Communications Expo will address the growing need of businesses to integrate and leverage cloud based communications applications, process enhancement techniques, and network based communications interfaces and architectures. For more information on registering for the Cloud Communications Expo click here.

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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves