Challenges
Herein lies the dilemma. While
resource consolidation can help you achieve your cost-cutting
goals, it often does so at the expense of application performance
by placing more pressure on existing data center and WAN
resources.
For instance, while Web-enabled applications reduce client software
support costs, they also create a capacity crunch on the WAN, since
Web-based applications are nowhere near as bandwidth-efficient as
their client/server counterparts. Buying more bandwidth is an
option, but that will drive up costs and won’t fix all of your
problems. The distance between the data center and remote and
branch-office users imposes application-killing latency—a fact
that all the bandwidth in the world can’t overcome. Any global
business that has extended its centralized business applications to
distributed branch office and remote users has learned that latency
is the number one cause of poor application performance.
Regulatory compliance adds another dimension to the challenge.
Making sure that email, files, and other data are retained isn’t
easy, given the disparate devices currently installed at far-flung
locations. In short, you’re faced with a compliance and
application performance challenge that requires a strategic,
proven, and straightforward solution, one that gives remote and
branch office users the same response times they get from local
servers. You also deserve a set of tools that provide a holistic
view of the distributed enterprise and the applications running
over it. Your WAN services and application licenses cost a lot of
money, so understanding exactly how these strategic assets are
performing is absolutely critical.
Trends
A number of trends and environmental
changes threaten to transform the distributed enterprise from a
strategic asset into a potential liability. These trends and
changes are legitimate responses to evolving business needs. And
because they have occurred over time, they have resulted in a
patchwork of solutions that have added complexity to the
environment.
Globalization and Distributed Applications
To
remain competitive in an increasingly global business environment,
organizations have established branch offices in locations around
the world. In order to give their branch office staffs the same
level of application performance as corporate headquarters,
companies have created mini data centers at each branch, deploying
application, file, and email servers at these remote sites.
While this resource proliferation gets the job done, it also has
several serious drawbacks.
It drives up capital costs, because the only way to keep pace with
corporate expansion is to buy and deploy servers on an as-needed
basis, making it impossible to leverage economies of scale.
Web-Enabling Business Operations
Similar
resource proliferation is occurring in the data center, though for
different reasons.
As the Internet became a strategic corporate productivity tool, IT
execs added a “Web tier” that initially consisted of Web
servers in front of their centralized application servers to
support Web-based versions of their business applications. These
Web-based applications not only provided universal access to all
employees, they also reduced costs by centralizing operations and
eliminating the need to install and support client software on
individual user desktops.
As dependence on these Web-enabled applications grew, however, the
Web tier expanded to include server load balancers (SLBs), SSL
accelerators, cache appliances, authentication servers, and other
equipment to keep the applications running smoothly for the
swelling ranks of users.
With each successive Web application deployment, complexity grew,
driving up costs and impacting performance. Management became
difficult, and the initial benefits of Web-based
applications—universal access, centralized maintenance, and
support—were compromised.
Data Center Consolidation and Application
Acceleration
On the heels of these changes, IT is now
being tasked with a number of new initiatives to curb costs and
regain control over the ever-expanding enterprise.
To satisfy this objective, many organizations are eliminating their
distributed branch office data centers and centralizing servers in
one or two locations. This centralization saves considerable cost
by reducing the number of servers required to support the
workforce, eliminating the need for local IT personnel, and
simplifying system management.
Unfortunately, these solutions also subject the distributed
enterprise to even greater stress by forcing application sessions
to run over notoriously slow wide area links. The result is poor
application performance and response times for remote, mobile, and
branch office users – the very problem the distributed data
centers were designed to avoid.
In short, data center consolidation and server centralization has
presented IT managers with a whole new set of challenges,
including:
WAN Capacity:• WAN links offer limited bandwidth, and this is a
considerable handicap as users attempt to send more rich content
across the distributed enterprise. Web-enabling conventional
applications exacerbates the problem by consuming at least 10 times
more bandwidth than traditional client/server applications. New
application rollouts—inevitable in any large
organization—consume even more. With the pressure on to constrain
costs, IT managers can’t expect to buy their way out of this
problem with additional bandwidth.
• Latency: Latency is the silent killer of applications. Chatty
protocols such as TCP, HTTP, and HTTPS, as well as delay-sensitive
solutions such as VoIP and the protocols used by applications such
as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft file services, are
significantly impacted by even modest latency on wide area links.
The result is poor response times for users.
• Availability: Without a connection to the data center and the
rest of the enterprise, work simply stops. Creating an
application-fluent infrastructure that understands the content and
transactions at Layers 4 through 7 is an absolute necessity to
delivering transaction completeness. Equally necessary in the
always-on workplace are multiple paths connecting branch office and
remote users to ensure business processes continue
uninterrupted.
• Contention: According to a recent survey, enterprise IT
managers are running more than 100 applications across their WAN
connections. Approximately one-quarter of these applications are
considered business-critical. When these applications compete for a
fixed amount of bandwidth, all of them suffer.
• Security: Nearly 60 percent of today’s workforce operates
outside corporate headquarters. These employees need secure access
to business-critical applications and other centralized resources.
In many cases, secure access must also be extended to
“outsiders” such as customers and business partners.
Manageability:• You can’t manage what you can’t see. If IT
managers don’t know what’s happening across the distributed
enterprise, they can’t see clearly how to improve performance.
Historically, monitoring and reporting application performance on
the WAN has been difficult to do on a corporate IT budget. With
application licenses, WAN services, and headcount consuming most of
the budget, it’s time for a better solution.
Addressing Enterprise Initiatives
Each of these challenges impacts the major initiatives facing IT
managers today. These initiatives, which essentially define the
evolving enterprise, include the following:
• Web-enabling: Off-the-shelf (SAP, Oracle) and custom-developed
client/server business applications to lower branch office
management costs and simplify connections by replacing private
lines with virtual private networks (VPNs).
This application migration, however, raises a number of security,
bandwidth, and transaction completion issues. While client/server
applications use proven methods to ensure that transactions have
been completed successfully, the Web-enabled versions lack any such
technique. Plus, they may be accessed over the public Internet,
presenting security and capacity problems.
• New applications: Continually deployed both to reduce costs and
to deliver new capabilities to end users. VoIP, for example,
represents a cost-effective communication tool, while Microsoft’s
SharePoint and converged applications such as combined
voice/Instant Messenger (IM) are being used to enhance
collaboration.
Applications like VoIP, however, have special requirements such as
extremely low latency, jitter, and loss. As congestion grows, VoIP
calls could be dropped, making it absolutely critical for IT to set
and enforce quality of service (QoS) policies, and closely monitor
activity on WAN connections.
Server centralization:• While an effective cost-cutting
initiative, server centralization also presents performance issues
for users accessing centralized applications from remote sites. IT
must be able to guarantee sufficient performance for remote users,
and understanding how WAN links behave, and how applications
perform over these links, is critical.
Regulatory compliance: Simply put, it’s difficult for IT to
gather and retain email and data for the required length of time if
the enterprise is a patchwork of diverse devices and point products
distributed around the globe.
Data replication: As businesses establish backup data centers
farther away from the primary location, they are typically unable
to deliver the high-bandwidth, low-latency services that permit the
continuous replication of data that is so critical to disaster
recovery and high availability. Enterprises must overcome this
obstacle to avoid data loss and enable smooth cutover in the event
of a disaster.
Juniper Networks Application Acceleration Solutions for the
Distributed Enterprise
Juniper Networks® WXC Series Application Acceleration Platforms
and WX Client give IT managers a holistic solution to problems in
the data center and on WAN links, as well as a cost-effective way
to comply with new corporate initiatives—without sacrificing
performance across the distributed enterprise.
The WXC Series Family: Overcoming WAN
Limitations
Server centralization leaves branch
office employees at the mercy of the WAN when it comes to
application performance. The WXC Series Application Acceleration
Platforms accelerate mission-critical applications over wide area
links, making branch office users feel local again. The product
family includes the WXC250, WXC1800, WXC2600, WXC500, WXC590,
WXC3400, and the WXC Stack. Each provides the full feature set and
runs the same WXOS software. WXC Series products provide a range of
compressed output, from 2 Mbps to 155 Mbps rates. They also differ
in the number of remote sites they can link to, ranging from two to
840. Multiple communities of WXC Series devices can be configured
to support an unlimited number of locations.
The WX Series Framework
The WX Series
Framework is unique in that it delivers the full complement of
capabilities needed to enhance every aspect of the global
enterprise:
• Compression and caching: To reduce the amount of data actually
flowing across wide area links by eliminating redundant data
patterns and boosting connection capacity to accommodate a greater
volume of traffic
• Acceleration techniques: To speed the performance of specific
applications and protocols over the WAN, cutting response times and
optimizing traffic flows to deliver a more LAN-like experience for
remote office users
• Application control: QoS, bandwidth management, and
Policy-Based Multipath features ensure that applications make the
most efficient use of available links and bandwidth to optimize
performance and prioritize mission-critical data traffic
Visibility into WAN links and application performance:• To enable
IT to understand how all WAN endpoints are performing, providing
the information needed to make informed capacity planning and
configuration decisions, as well as to quickly detect, isolate, and
resolve performance problems
Real-World Benefits
WX Series Framework
capabilities help IT professionals overcome their toughest wide
area challenges. Molecular Sequence Reduction (MSR) compression
technology, for instance, reduces application data flows across WAN
links by 60 to 75 percent, which translates into a capacity
increase of up to four times. This “extra” capacity can be used
for new application rollouts without having to invest in additional
bandwidth. The Network Sequence Caching technology, which uses hard
disks to store larger data patterns for longer periods of time,
reduces traffic flows up to 99 percent—a 50 to 100 times capacity
increase—again, without having to re-provision a single
link.
Acceleration techniques boost application response times at branch
offices by 5 to 10 times on average. Working with generic protocols
such as TCP and specific applications such as Microsoft Exchange
(MAPI), Microsoft File Services (CIFS) and Web servers (HTTP/HTTPS)
and SSL, the WXC Series brings performance gains of up to 100
times— more than sufficient to justify the centralization of
critical application servers. QoS assures application delivery by
effectively managing bandwidth and establishing and enforcing
prioritization policies. Business-critical and delay-sensitive
applications
always get the bandwidth they need, without interfering with other
applications. And Juniper’s Policy-Based Multipath technology
lets IT assign application traffic to specific links when more than
one is available, providing an additional level of control to
assure effective application delivery.
WXOS Operating System Software
The WX
Operating System (WXOS) software is the foundation of the Juniper
Networks WXC Series Application Acceleration Platforms. Supporting
the interdependent technologies of the WX Series Framework that
provide powerful compression, caching, acceleration, application
control, and visibility for the WXC Series products, the WXOS
software enables LAN-like application delivery across the WAN. WX
Central Management System (WX CMS) Software One of the most
critical issues to address in WAN optimization is visibility into
an enterprise’s distributed network and applications. All too
often, IT does not have—and cannot get the budget to buy—the
tools needed to really understand what is traversing the WAN. More
than any other single feature of the WX Series Framework, the WX
CMS software is tightly woven into every other function, providing
IT with aggregated reporting of WAN and application performance,
and control over the parameters that affect business
policies.
The Sequence Caching and MSR technologies benefit different traffic
types in their compression and caching capabilities. Both provide
far broader advantages than file caching or traditional
compression.
The WX CMS software provides the following benefits for any
deployment of multiple WXC Series platforms:
Visibility into WAN applications and performance, with unique
customizable portal: • The WX CMS software gives IT a complete
view into what is happening on their WAN with deep visibility on
applications distribution, performance, optimization and
health.
Centralized and simplified configuration:• The WX CMS software
creates a single location from which to manage and monitor as many
as 2,000 WXC Series platforms.
Global policies and monitoring:• The WX CMS software allows
network managers to centrally manage and modify global
configuration settings on all WXC Series platforms. IT can also
monitor the distributed platforms, with status reports providing
at-a-glance summaries of device health, configuration status, and
data on compression, sequence caching, and acceleration
results.
Content distribution:• The WX CMS software allows IT to
selectively pre-populate distributed WXC Series devices with large
files, providing content delivery network (CDN)-like capabilities
without actually deploying a dedicated CDN solution.
Automated deployment and license management:• Using the WX CMS
software, IT can automate configuration and license management of
remote WXC Series platforms, greatly simplifying the set up of tens
or hundreds of distributed platforms.
Simplified problem resolution:• The WX CMS Event Management
Console provides a summary of system and performance events,
enabling IT to proactively find and resolve network problems. The
system can be configured to send email alerts when events are
detected for more rapid resolution.
The WX CMS software runs on Microsoft Windows 2000 and 2003 servers
and can be accessed securely from any browser connection via
HTTPS.
WX Client: Application Acceleration for mobile users and
small offices
The WX Client provides a completely
transparent and cost-effective way to boost the productivity of
mobile and small office users.
Easy to install and requiring little or no end user intervention,
the WX Client is a Windows-based desktop application (Windows 2000
and XP) that works transparently
WX Client deployment scenarios
WXC Series
reduce application traffic on the WAN, opening up capacity and
improving response times for
remote and branch-office users.
in the background without interfering with other applications such
as IPsec/VPN and personal firewalls that may be installed on the
end user’s machine. The WX Client improves application
performance over the WAN by recognizing and eliminating redundant
transmissions, and accelerating TCP and application-specific
protocols.
The WX Client is unique in the industry because of its integration
with Juniper Networks SA Series SSL VPN Appliances. A key challenge
for IT administrators in deploying software on hundreds or
thousands of end user machines is managing the distribution of the
software and maintaining software version control. Juniper solves
this by integrating the WX Client with the SA Series; when a user
connects to their
SA Series appliance, the WX Client is auto-installed on the end
user’s machine and for all subsequent SA Series sessions, a check
is performed by the SA Series appliance to determine if the WX
Client software and configuration version is current. Also most
software clients must be manually started to accelerate traffic,
which in turn requires that the end user remembers to start their
software client when they are remote. Juniper solves this in its
integrated solution with a WX Client that can be automatically
started once the end user’s SA Series connection is
established.
Combining the WX Client with SA Series products provides automated
download and WX Client management via a feature rich authentication
and policy platform, providing IT administrators with a simple way
to ensure that all remote end user traffic is both secure and
accelerated.
Integration Advantages
Through the integration of advanced capabilities in the WXC Series,
IT can proceed with server centralization and data center
consolidation initiatives to simplify network architecture and
reduce capital outlays. WXC Series platform deployment is
completely automated, so no IT expertise is required at the branch
office when a new platform is installed. Local users simply power
the device and connect it to the network; the platform takes it
from there, downloading and installing the necessary configuration
data from a WX Central Management System (WX CMS) server at the
central location.
Finally, because the WCX Series platforms are deployed
symmetrically, with one at each end of the wide area link, they are
in a perfect position to monitor and assess exactly how
applications are performing over the WAN. IT managers gain full
visibility into WAN links between the data center and branch
offices; in some cases, the IT staff can take advantage of
monitoring functions at the branch office that would be otherwise
unavailable.
Planning, Implementation, and Deployment
The
WXC Series products integrate seamlessly with existing LAN and WAN
designs and operate fully transparently, independent of other
network equipment, applications, servers, clients, and WAN topology
and interfaces. WXC Series devices are deployed at both ends of a
WAN link, enhancing the WAN and application knowledge of
each.
IT can place a WXC Series platform either directly in the flow of
traffic between a LAN switch and WAN router or attach it to a port
on the switch or router. This off-path deployment option provides
IT the flexibility required to support LANs designed with collapsed
backbone switch/routers or with so many redundant connections among
the LAN switch and WAN router that inline deployments would be
impractical.
The WXC Series provide a number of redundancy, high-availability,
and load-balancing features. All data center WXC Series products
include redundant power supplies, and all WXC Series platforms
support fail-safe operation. In the event of a failure of any kind,
including total loss of power, the WXC Series interfaces
automatically convert to a bypass mode in which all traffic simply
passes through the device untouched.
WXC Series platforms operate in communities that dynamically
exchange information such as topology, reachability, and path
performance metrics, providing IT with distributed stateful
intelligence about local and wide area network conditions. IT also
has the option to partition large WXC Series deployments into
separate domains, increasing operational scalability.
WXC Series devices support a multitude of redundant deployment
modes. WXOS software works with routers configured with redundancy
protocols, and WXC Series can also be deployed in tandem at a
single location, with both platforms active or with one in standby
mode. WXC Series devices also work effectively alongside VPN
servers or firewalls. The WXC Series sit on the trusted side of the
security device and optimize traffic before it is encrypted,
avoiding any conflict with the security devices.
In contrast to many WAN optimization platforms that involve
cumbersome configuration, the WXC Series are fast and easy to
install. Central devices can be configured within 10 minutes, and
IT can use the WX CMS software to automate deployment of devices at
remote locations, which typically have no local IT staff. Corporate
IT simply defines centralized configuration templates and notes
which locations will use them. At boot up, remote WXC Series
automatically obtain a network address, locate the WX CMS server
through the Domain Name System (DNS), request configuration from
the WX CMS server, download the appropriate configuration file, and
begin operation.
IT can also use the WX CMS software to monitor and manage multiple
WXC Series devices as a group, or they can use the embedded secure
WebView or command-line interface (CLI) to manage each device
separately. WXC Series products are available in a range of
capacities to meet the needs of various sizes of enterprise
locations.
Summary
With application acceleration,
high-performance businesses are figuring out that they no longer
need to make a significant compromise between IT and user
requirements. In fact, discriminating organizations are going a
step further by recognizing the added long term benefit of making
an application acceleration solution part of a broader
high-performance network driven strategy.
The Juniper Networks WXC Series Application Acceleration Platforms
and WX Client deliver best-in-class application delivery across the
wide area network, restoring global networks to their rightful
place as a strategic business tool. By simultaneously targeting
both the data center and the WAN, Juniper’s application
acceleration platforms deliver fast and consistent application
response—ensuring uncompromised access to mission-critical
applications and services. They enable IT managers to make the most
efficient use of existing resources while radically simplifying the
data center and branch-office architectures, streamlining
applications, and delivering unprecedented visibility into network
performance. Finally, for the high performing enterprise, WXC
Series Application Acceleration Platforms and WX Client enable IT
to achieve the greatest success in meeting business goals by
providing:
Fast, consistent, and uncompromised access to important
applications and services across the WAN Broad application
support
Performance and scale to support large application
deployments
A comprehensive management system for central management,
monitoring, and troubleshooting
Flexible application acceleration deployment
Solutions that build competitive advantage
The WX Series Framework provides the foundation for the WXC Series
Application Acceleration Platforms, making it easy and
cost-effective for IT to provide the enterprise-class application
acceleration and delivery needed to support new applications and
branch office access to centralized resources.
