Finding the Optimal WAN Interface

A wide area network covers a big area geographically, like a province or a state, sometimes even a country. Some companies, like AT&T have a wide area network, or a WAN, that covers the globe. These WAN’s are constantly being upgraded and optimized, which essentially means trying to make the transfer of data more efficient. Companies like Lantiq, Cisco, and aClera are leaders in the world of WAN optimization.

WAN’s often face a variety of issues with their latency and many companies are trying to improve their performance. One of the more common and difficult problems is called jitter, which is high congestion in a WAN causing a huge line-up. Other WAN issues include problems with protocol optimization and bandwidth requirements. Lantiq is launching a new system called the AnyWAN, which gives the networks the ability to construct doorways that can support a plethora of WAN interfaces from one singular design. Basically, it makes it possible to employ any WAN interface while making no changes to the hardware and set up of the pre-existing software and network solution.

Certeon is partnering with aClera to help increase the speed of VM transfers between clouds, and data centers. This WAN optimization also helps applications to run more quickly and efficiently and pumps up the overall network performance. This product makes it possible for companies to reap the benefits of hybrid clouds without affecting the the way the WAN runs. The aClera product is attached to both ends of a WAN and it uses compression and intelligent data analyzing to rid the system of bandwidth limitations.

Cicso, though currently deciding to leave behind many underperforming projects like consumer video and tablet computing, is still standing strong behind its Wide Area Application Services, or WAAS. This system is viewed by many as the most powerful WAN optimization around, and Cisco is fighting to keep WAAS working and making profit. They certainly install a huge amount, only being surpassed by Riverbed. WAAS is focusing on its Could Connect Solutions and the Cloud Intelligent Network, trying to make them more adaptable into common systems.

South Africa is currently dealing with a country wide WAN that is not performing efficiently enough for their government needs. At the level it is at now, the WAN is actually making it difficult for employees to finish their daily work, which in turn is causing slow turnout, frustrated workers, and the public to become angry. With a complex WAN with over ten thousand endpoints, it becomes incredibly difficult to even identify the culprits in the system that are causing the issues. Luckily for South Africa, the government has decided to make this a priority and is putting top network cabling companies on the job. Using a WAN optimization platform, these companies and technical teams are to find whatever is causing the backlog and fix the situation before any users even have a chance to make a complaint.

WAN optimization is on the rise and studies predict that the market will increase by tenfold in the next four to six years. Network cabling companies worldwide are in for quite the monetary increase if they can jump on the bandwagon and begin to own a piece of the WAN world.