As market competition heats up and organizations fight for every
customer dollar, the battle focuses on the branch office, often the
site of the only customer contact with an organization. This
Technology Spotlight paper looks at a critical networking
technology, WAN application delivery, and how it can cut branch
office IT costs and improve service by providing LAN-like
communications across the WAN. The paper also describes the
strategic implementation of WAN application delivery products and
Cisco Systems' Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) solution
specifically. Guidelines are provided for IT organizations
selecting a WAN application delivery solution.
Role of the Branch Office in a Down Economy
In difficult economic times, the importance of the remote office
will continue to increase for one simple reason: It is the company
resource closest to end customers. As a result, enterprises must
continue to invest in IT resources for remote sites.
But the need for IT at the branch is balanced by the costs
associated with having server and storage resources replicated
across hundreds and/or thousands of remote branch locations. As
such, IDC believes that a technology referred to as WAN application
delivery will increasingly enable customers to achieve the best of
both worlds at the branch ó responding in real time to business
needs while reducing IT spending.
To provide better customer service, enterprises are changing WAN
usage. Employee traffic patterns are moving away from traditional
hub-and-spoke networks and toward new dynamic communications that
take into consideration the need for employees to go directly to
business-critical applications and utilize unified communications
based on voice over IP (VoIP), regardless of location. The ability
to resolve performance issues quickly, with minimal to zero impact
on the network architecture, makes WAN application delivery
technology an important consideration for enterprises interested in
a quantifiable return on investment (ROI).
Straightforward implementation, combined with decreased bandwidth
costs and fewer help desk calls, is pushing this technology into a
strategic role within enterprise network architectures. Ongoing
server consolidation and centralization projects are similarly
driving growth in this market.
Consolidation of the datacenter, however, can carry a latency
penalty for the branch office. WAN application delivery solutions
help mitigate this problem by delivering LAN-like performance to
the branch office.
WAN Application Delivery Defined
Essentially, WAN application delivery products optimize WAN
communications. These products are deployed at the branch and in
the datacenter, and they not only provide bandwidth savings but
also enable secure consolidation of file servers, emails, and print
services across the WAN, as well as business-specific applications
such as retail point-of-sale and bank teller transactions.
Typically, WAN application delivery products compress data streams,
monitor traffic flow, prioritize traffic, optimize bandwidth, and
provide file caching. They also optimize and accelerate the
performance of particular applications. These features and
associated cost benefits helped the WAN
application delivery market grow over 60% in 2007, according to
IDC, to $825 million in revenue.
Despite current market uncertainty, revenue for the WAN application
delivery market surpassed $1 billion in 2008 ó two years ahead of
the previous forecast. IDC expects the worldwide WAN application
delivery market to achieve a CAGR of 14% over the five-year
forecast period, reaching
$1.6 billion by 2012. We believe there are several structural
reasons the WAN application delivery market will continue to grow
faster than the rest of the IT market, even in the current economic
cycle, for at least the next five years.
The projected market growth is due to the following factors:
! Cost/performance advantages. When a technology solution such as
WAN application acceleration solves a major pain point for IT, is
easily deployed, results in cost savings for the company, and
offers a readily quantifiable ROI, then it will enjoy stronger
growth than other technology solutions despite a sluggish
economy.
! Consolidation. Datacenter consolidation continues as
organizations seek to leverage best practices in datacenter design
implementations and IT staff expertise.
! Application centralization. Applications are being pulled out of
the branch and back into the datacenter, and application
performance issues continue to fuel the demand for WAN application
delivery solutions.
At the same time, more data will need to be stored and accessed at
the remote office to ensure prompt customer service. Also, legacy
applications are not going away; therefore, as companies look to
squeeze everything they can out of existing investments, they will
look to find ways to connect the
old with the new.
With telecommunication companies making the transition to IP,
latency-sensitive VoIP will be the only deployment option for new
voice rollouts at the branch ó thus impacting other centrally
delivered applications. In addition, globalization will continue
and organizations will seek new markets, or
companies will merge to better compete. Similarly, offshoring will
drive a need to provide LAN-like communications on a global
basis.
The use of WAN application delivery for the purpose of speeding up
backup procedures associated with disaster recovery efforts also
has been gaining ground. Companies have found that WAN application
delivery solutions are eliminating the need to purchase additional
bandwidth to crunch
backup windows, thereby saving money over the long run.
IDC sees a future for this technology to enable and support virtual
client deployments.
Prime Candidates for WAN Application
Delivery
Globally distributed enterprises continue
to be prime candidates for this technology. Some smaller remote
sites not only are challenged geographically but also have
difficulties when faced with slower fractional T1 connections. WAN
application delivery solutions can address both of these areas,
which
makes them attractive as an integral component of enterprise
networks.
Service provider networks are likewise fertile territory for
application delivery products. These products are being deployed
for multiple purposes within service provider networks. They are
supporting the internal IT departments of service providers, just
like any large enterprise organization.
Additionally, they are being deployed in support of new Web
hosting, content delivery, or managed service offerings.
WAN application delivery has proven to be more than a quick fix for
speeding up sluggish protocols that were not originally designed
for distribution outside the LAN. There are several reasons for
this, and perhaps the most compelling is the changing role of the
branch. The branch is no longer viewed
as a far-flung outpost; rather, it is viewed as a viable extension
of the business. There are direct benefits between improved
performance at the branch and higher user productivity. In the case
of retail companies, for example, the branch is the business.
The easy and measurable ROI of WAN application acceleration
solutions has moved the technology from the "nice to have" category
into the "must have" category for many types of WAN deployments. As
the branch grows, WAN application delivery solutions can save money
by avoiding costly upgrades to existing bandwidth. These products
are also proving to solve customer pain points around remote
backup. They are accelerating WAN traffic between datacenters to
improve disaster recovery.
The combination of features, including the ability to improve
application performance, availability, and security over the WAN,
is creating explosive growth.
Mobility is proving to be a new and growing opportunity as well,
with most enterprises emphasizing a mobile workforce to better meet
customer needs, especially in the areas of backup and recovery,
VoIP, and video, as companies look to standardize their telephony
infrastructure across the enterprise. Video, in the form of
training and teleconferencing, has emerged as a money-saving
strategy while also helping companies "go green."
Strategically Implementing WAN Application
Delivery
However, the implementation of WAN
application delivery solutions should not be taken lightly
especially as IT expenditures come under greater scrutiny. First
and foremost, organizations must understand their WAN traffic now
and in the future and make sure the WAN application delivery
solution can meet their needs now and two years from now. This
includes understanding which sites/users are experiencing
performance issues, what applications are at the sites, and the
bandwidth requirements and characteristics of each of these
applications.
Part of this understanding will come from answering the following
questions:
! Will the product/service help reduce the hardware footprint at
the branch?
! Is faster access to data the most important thing, or do other
considerations such as network visibility dominate?
! Are there data protection and compliance issues to
consider?
! Who will manage the product, and where?
It's also important to consider security requirements. If
enterprises do not have a security policy, they must create one.
Then organizations can develop IT policies that ensure adherence to
the security policy.
In addition, enterprises must determine how they will go about
selecting and implementing WAN application delivery. Does the IT
department have the ability to create its own solutions or to
purchase and install solutions without outside help? If not,
selecting a supplier with extensive support
experience is critical.
If possible, enterprises must test solutions from more than one
vendor under the same conditions to be optimized. Every solution
has its strengths and weaknesses, and the right one needs to mesh
not only with the network environment (specifically routers and
security, as well as VoIP) but also with
staff and in-house expertise. Enterprises should select the testing
scenario and ensure that all products are evaluated similarly, as
this is a multifaceted technology impacting applications, networks,
and storage.
Organizations also are advised to look for the following:
! A well-designed, graphical management console. IT managers must
understand the traffic out on the WAN and be able to manage it as
effectively as possible. Latency must be reduced, and that means
providing metrics that track when and where the network might be
experiencing "latency creep" on the WAN links. Managers need an
easy-to-use console to make the tweaks necessary to squeeze out
every last drop of performance gain.
! Easy setup and deployment, as well as ongoing operations that are
self-educating. The system must do the discovery not just on day
one but also on an ongoing basis so that as the network topology
changes, performance continues to be optimized. The solution must
minimize management and configuration once it is deployed, given
that networks and other parameters will continue to evolve and
change. Otherwise, the solution will be perceived as not delivering
or not scaling to meet growing needs.
Considering Cisco's Wide Area Application
Services
Cisco Systems offers WAN application
delivery solutions as part of its Application Networking Services
(ANS) portfolio. ANS is a key pillar of Cisco's vision for
next-generation datacenters, called Data Center 3.0. Cisco refers
to its WAN application delivery technology as WAAS. WAAS software
is designed to accelerate applications over the network, delivering
video to the branch office and providing local hosting of branch
office IT services while reducing the overall branch office device
footprint. Cisco's WAN application delivery solution allows IT
departments to centralize applications and storage in the
datacenter while maintaining high levels of application
performance. In addition, the company's WAAS solution enables
locally hosted IT services.
WAAS is a comprehensive WAN optimization solution designed to
accelerate applications, reduce branch infrastructure costs,
improve IT agility, and simplify remote data protection. Cisco's
WAAS offers the following advanced technology:
! Data redundancy elimination (DRE) for improving application
performance for all TCP applications
! Application-specific acceleration through improved Layer 7
performance, based on licensed protocols validated by application
vendors that use techniques such as read-ahead, operation batching,
multiplexing, and safe caching
! Transport flow optimization to improve WAN efficiency and
handling conditions such as packet loss, congestion, and
recovery
! Autodetection and single streaming of live video, enabling a
single video to be delivered to a remote office and then
distributed to multiple end users
! Transparent integration with existing infrastructure, including
dynamic autodiscovery of endpoints and seamless use of existing
router quality of service specifications
! Virtualized hosting to enable local deployments of IT services
such as Microsoft Windows Server directly on WAAS appliances
The benefits of Cisco's WAAS solution include LAN-like performance
for centralized applications across the WAN and increased
application reach to users in branch offices and mobile
environments.
The technology also enables wide-scale delivery of live video by
eliminating bandwidth upgrades and complex configuration. By
enabling centralization of branch office server and storage into
datacenters, bandwidth optimization, and simplified remote data
protection, WAAS provides IT cost
control for remote sites. Delivery of applications is streamlined,
which improves the ability of the services.
By reducing the risk of integration and operations through
application-specific acceleration and hosted services, simplifying
operations by preserving existing network services, and ensuring
secure WAN acceleration, Cisco's WAAS can lower the total cost of
ownership of branch office networking
solutions.
Market Challenges
Cisco does face market
challenges, however. First and foremost, in a tightening economy,
the company must help IT managers justify the costs of implementing
a WAAS solution. This includes demonstrating immediate benefits
while ensuring long-term ROI.
From a technology perspective, Cisco has aggressively focused on
performance and recently achieved performance test results that are
very similar to those of other vendors in its 4.1 release.
The company has also recently added SSL security and application
intelligence.
But Cisco needs to continue focusing on improving performance for
advanced applications such as desktop virtualization and improving
integration across the company's portfolio e.g., video.
IDC believes that if Cisco does not rest on its accomplishments in
application networking and meets enterprise needs for
cost-effective branch office application delivery solutions, WAAS
will continue to be a leading solution in IDC's predicted growth of
the WAN application delivery market ó despite
tough economic times.
Conclusion
IDC believes that WAN application
delivery technology has proven to be flexible enough to meet a
variety of IT needs, including performance and disaster recovery,
while providing good ROI. The network is the link for the remote
branch back to the datacenter and headquarters. IT
organizations
will continue to look to the WAN to support key goals at the
branch.
Organizations will also continue investing in network solutions
that increase the bandwidth, reliability, and security of the
remote branch, even in a sluggish economy, because these solutions
ultimately lower operating costs. If Cisco can successfully address
the challenges described in this paper, such as improving
integration across its product portfolio, the firm has a
significant opportunity to expand the scope of the value
proposition it delivers to IT through solutions for the remote
branch.
Enterprises should evaluate solutions such as Cisco's based on the
unique needs of individual IT environments. Because there are many
different types of remote branches, enterprises must evaluate a
combination of the following areas:
! WAN bandwidth availability
! Application performance requirements
! IT staffing at the branch, in order to evaluate requirements for
centralized management
! Business continuity and data protection needs
! The appropriate location to enforce security policies
! How remote branch infrastructure supports compliance
mandates
! Technologies in the branch to address changing traffic patterns,
such as WAN optimization and multipoint VPNs
Given the current economy, WAN application delivery solutions must
focus on the needs of both network managers and managers of
remotely accessed applications, servers, and storage whose joint
objectives are to reduce overall branch IT costs, improve employee
and IT staff effectiveness,
and increasingly prepare the network.
