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Henderson District Public Libraries Ramps Up With Packeteer iShaper
Solution
(Wireless News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
Packeteer, a provider of WAN application delivery, announced that
Henderson District Public Libraries, serving the city of Henderson,
Nev., is deploying iShaper appliances at its main library and all
branch locations to offer patrons high-performance access to both the
Internet and its own online content, while balancing network bandwidth
utilization to support business-critical library automation and
voice-over-IP applications.
The iShaper solution delivers an entirely new class of unified branch
office capabilities by combining unprecedented application visibility,
intelligent acceleration and compression, caching, secure application
QoS, and native Microsoft Wide Area File Services (WAFS) in a single,
easy-to-deploy appliance. The iShaper deployment will enable Henderson
Libraries to eliminate servers in all remote branches without requiring
WAN bandwidth upgrades.
Henderson Libraries is pioneering the library's future. In addition to
traditional Internet access for its patrons, the libraries have Wi-Fi
access, and offer a NetLibrary eContent collection of digital versions
of books, journals and databases, an Overdrive collection of digital
audio books, eBooks and video, a MyLibraryDV collection of on-demand
video programming, and a "virtual" branch available 24x7 on the Web at
http://www.mypubliclibrary.com.
According to IT Manager Sean Hill, "I feel fortunate to work for an
institution that understands the value of modern technology. Printed
publications are still important, of course, but the library of the
future will need to offer the full spectrum of available content to
adequately serve the public's needs."
The challenge for Henderson Libraries was to prioritize and provide
reliable delivery of Internet access, its own internal library
automation applications and growing collection of online content, and
video/VoIP communications cost-effectively at all locations. The
centralization of all IT services at the main branch would yield
substantial cost savings, but would also place increased traffic on the
remote branch WAN links that range in throughput from T1's 1.5 Mbps to
MetroEthernet's 5 Mbps.
"We installed a PacketShaper system a few years ago when we began using
videoconferencing, and that has really helped us keep our WAN bandwidth
costs to a minimum," Hill explained. "But we have since grown and added
a considerable amount of bandwidth-intensive online content, resulting
in sluggish performance during peak periods, especially when users are
attempting to download streaming video and music files."
Faced with a potential costly WAN upgrade, Hill investigated his
options. Because the library had standardized on Microsoft to minimize
software licensing fees, Hill required a natively compatible Microsoft
WAFS solution to centralize the libraries' servers. "When Packeteer
introduced the iShaper, I knew it was the ideal solution for all our
needs since the appliance is transparent to our network operations,"
Hill said. "It also provides us with the ability to intelligently
monitor application traffic and "dial down' bandwidth abusers so our
business-critical voice, catalog search and library operations
applications are always guaranteed top priority."
"Henderson District Public Libraries had been a long-time satisfied
Packeteer PacketShaper customer when they approached Starnet about the
integrated iShaper platform," said Steve Marks, president and general
manager at Starnet Data Design, a Packeteer product integrator. "With
iShaper, Henderson District Public Libraries found a simple, seamless
and easy to install upgrade for its PacketShaper appliances in order to
offer a broad range of file sharing and acceleration features and
Microsoft services."
The iShaper system combines the capabilities of Packeteer's
PacketShaper and iShared product lines. PacketShaper features include
network and application monitoring and analysis as well as
application-intelligent traffic classification and acceleration and QoS
shaping. iShared features include the WAFS distributed filesystem with
native support for Windows Print, DNS/DHCP, Domain Controller
functions, together with application-intelligent caching. The iShaper's
design provides a more comprehensive growth path for customers
upgrading from either the PacketShaper or iShared solutions, as well as
a complete "Branch Office-in-a-Box" solution for new Packeteer
customers.
((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))
((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd -
http://www.m2.com))
((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com))
Copyright 2007 Wireless News
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