Compression / data caching equipment?

NiCkNaMe · 28 Sep 2008 at 23:35

Hi All,

Not sure if what i'm asking for exists (or is even feasible)..

The company I work for has numerous sites across Europe and some of them only hold 2/3 staff. As such we've decided to remove the local servers from these sites and store all files centrally in HQ. Hence these staff now access data over the WAN. We've done this at one of these sites already.

Everything is fine with this and we've had no complaints. Speed is fine and although obviously no where near as good as a local server it's perfectly adaquate!!

We're now thinking of continuing with this idea at other sites.

I was wondering if any specific equipment exists that would sit on the WAN end at both sites and would compress the data before transmission? I realiase it could be done with certain Cisco routers but i'm moreso after a specific solution before I go down this route?

Feel free to laugh if i'm talking carp

oddjob62 · 28 Sep 2008 at 23:49

I've not used any myself but google for WAN Optimization Appliances and you'll find a few
Bluecoat's SG series, and Cisco's WAAS devices are examples.

Andy100 · 29 Sep 2008 at 03:14

Are you just storing the files at the Head Office?

In this type of situation you're usually better off using terminal services or Citrix to provide the end users with a desktop.

It's much more bandwidth efficient than dragging files across the wan and makes software upgrades a lot easier as you only have to upgrade the servers.

If you really want to do wan optimisation then a few I've dealt with have been, Expand and Packeteer.

sidethink · 29 Sep 2008 at 09:04

Riverbed Steelhead is the only way to go in my opinion. Expensive, but you get what you pay for.

bigredshark · 29 Sep 2008 at 11:03

Riverbed are a popular recommendation, personally we trialed their product and I didn't like it or them. Packeteer or Juniper would be my recommendations, both however are very expensive, I think it's very difficult to justify them in most environments.

NiCkNaMe · 29 Sep 2008 at 11:23

Thanks for the replies guys, i'll have a look in to the mentioned products.

RAS or Citrix isn't really an option due to the nature of their work. They're all frequently travelling (laptops) and as such don't always have a constant connection. We use offline files so they always hold a synchronised copy.

If the cost seems to be too expensive then I guess it outways the whole 'cost saving' excercise !

bigredshark · 29 Sep 2008 at 12:36

NiCkNaMe said:
Thanks for the replies guys, i'll have a look in to the mentioned products.

RAS or Citrix isn't really an option due to the nature of their work. They're all frequently travelling (laptops) and as such don't always have a constant connection. We use offline files so they always hold a synchronised copy.

If the cost seems to be too expensive then I guess it outways the whole 'cost saving' excercise !

The lower end juniper appliances, like the WXC590 licensed for a 2mb connection (supports up to 45Mbps), is available for around £13k. For a 2Mbit connection it's ludicrous, you can get a years worth of 10Mbit connectivity for that in a lot of places. I'd only consider it if you're out in the sticks and actually can't get a decent connection.