What is driving investment in WAN optimisation technology by organisations today?
Nigel Hawthorn. A number of strategic and tactical activities in corporate networks are driving the need for WAN optimisation. Firstly, many organisations are consolidating servers into the centre of their network to reduce costs and ensure better management, such as backups. Secondly, the rollout of ever more sophisticated (often web-based) applications continues. Thirdly, the increase in video streaming for training and meetings to deliver more effective communications. Fourthly, the need to allow users to access internal services whenever and wherever they may be, as users increasingly work remotely from HQ. Fifthly, the general increase in bandwidth needs, to both internal and external content. All five of these trends increase the amount of traffic on the wide area network and the importance that this data gets to the users fast to improve their productivity. It is a mixture of these trends or all of them together that mean CIOs are looking to WAN optimisation to accelerate data d
