The explosion of corporate data and rich media has strained LANs and WANs alike, but with the latter it can be particularly costly to accommodate the new demands. That fact has given rise to a host of new WAN optimization technologies.

These solutions squeeze more out of WAN links by doing everything from eliminating redundant transmissions to staging data in local caches, compressing and prioritizing data and streamlining chatty protocols.

IDC says the technologies can save companies tens of thousands of dollars per 100 users in hardware, software and bandwidth costs. Simultaneously, businesses can reduce IT operations costs and increase user productivity.

In use, WAN optimization tools can speed up bulk data transfers to improve disaster recovery capabilities, improve response times for interactive applications such as databases, reduce bandwidth costs, and present the opportunity to centralize file storage and consolidate servers. Some analyst firms say the tools can decrease link utilization 40% to 80% through caching and compression. Tack on the time-savings and flexibility that result from choosing optimization over WAN replacement, and the return on investment (ROI) is readily apparent.

Users WANt to see the benefits

The improvements from optimization are even visible to users who may not understand the technology behind it. Users may experience:

* Faster file accessibility: Due to caching, someone that utilizes the same files repeatedly will be able to access them more quickly because only new data must be saved and retrieved, rather than having to reload the full document.

* Increased speed between multiple office locations: WAN solutions maximize network speed between remote locations, accelerating file transfers and network-based communications, such as e-mail.

* Improved performance of “non-affected” applications: Applications that are not directly affected by optimization solutions appear to run more smoothly or faster because bandwidth previously used for other processes can now be dedicated to non-affected operations. For example, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other streaming media applications will operate more reliably.

* More reliable and faster data recovery: Crashed servers and applications can take a significant amount of time to recover. Optimization’s ability to increase network response time enables users to rapidly regain access to critical applications, increasing productivity.