As the application-acceleration market has evolved, several single-function devices have emerged that offer compression, caching, acceleration, bandwidth management, and reporting. IT has recognized, however, the impracticality of deploying multiple discrete devices and has instead sought solutions that integrate these capabilities into a single platform.

Even more valuable than simple platform reduction, this integration—when designed properly— provides better overall functionality, as each feature can tune itself based on dynamic feedback from each other. This multiplicative improvement results in greater improvement in application acceleration and WAN optimization. The inclusion of integrated measurement and monitoring also provides a clearer, more complete picture of WAN and application performance.... more

Distributed applications often require frequent communications between the client and back-end application servers to ensure synchronization and data consistency. These applications also run over “chatty” protocols that require hundreds or even thousands of round trips across the network to open, save or copy files. These frequent update and round-trip messages typically utilize predefined formats and protocols that are highly redundant and therefore generate a large number of repetitive patterns across the network.

In addition to these chatty protocols, regular bulk transfers between severs or databases also generate a high degree of network traffic redundancy.... more

The greatest threat to availability of any centralized application is the state of the WAN that connects distributed branch offices and remote and mobile users to the centralized business applications. Under the decentralized model, where application servers were deployed in each branch office, work could continue if the WAN link to the data center went down; data would be replicated to the main servers in the data center once the link was restored.

In today’s centralized environment, a WAN link failure means branch offices and other remote users are completely cut off from the servers in the data center and the business-critical applications that they host.... more

Today, globalization and the move to virtualize business operations are among the trends placing new demands on the IT infrastructure and, in particular, the data center – the nerve center of the enterprise. IT is responding by looking for ways to optimize the data center and the supporting network infrastructure to deliver the performance, availability, and security the evolving business environment demands.

Juniper Networks looks into these dynamics, and delivers proven solutions to meet the most challenging data center requirements – whether an enterprise is building new data centers or restructuring existing ones... more

Navigating the labyrinth of products designed to help applications perform well over private, virtual private, and public wide area networks (WANs) becomes more challenging as product choices proliferate. Product introductions routinely add new nomenclature to an already confusing mix, making it hard to identify which solutions solve what problems.

Citrix Systems, Juniper Networks, Packeteer, Radware, and Riverbed Technology are pleased to present this field guide to help alleviate the confusion. The guide defines the major causes of WAN performance problems, describes the prevailing solution techniques using common nomenclature, and maps the techniques to problems so readers can select the right solution set..... more