Bandwidth is no longer a fancy and expensive requirement for networks. Thanks to competition among bandwidth providers and developments in technology, bandwidth is constantly getting cheaper. As a result, upgrading bandwidth is often the first solution many IT engineers and system managers think of when faced with WAN problems. The question is, does upgrading your bandwidth ultimately solve these problems?
Speeding up data transfer
Upgrading your bandwidth throughput can speed up data transmission when a lot of data needs to move at once, but widening the pipe is not always enough. There are times when your WAN will still be slow despite not using all of the available bandwidth. Why? Latency.
Latency is the time needed for a packet to travel from one designated point to another. The farther the distance that data has to travel, the higher the latency is. Because packets and acknowledgments of receipt are moving back and forth many times to move a file or interact with an application, the distance between the two points ends up being the limiting factor for WAN speed.
WAN optimization solutions improve the transmission control protocol (TCP) to minimize the effects of latency. This decreases the time to send and receive data, which in turn increases speed of data transferred. WAN Optimization Controller can improve WAN speeds as much as 60X.
Improving application performance
Similar to slow data transmission, when an IT manager get complaints about a slow application, they may think that a bandwidth upgrade can solve the problem. Once again, if latency is too high, increasing the throughput will not improve application performance. Moreover, poor bandwidth management could be the problem. This is when one application uses up most of the bandwidth while other critical applications have to share the remainder. Even if you add more bandwidth non-critical applications will often bloat to use up much of what you gained.
Physical WAN Optimization Controllers allow IT administrators to prioritize bandwidth for business-critical applications and restrict bandwidth for non-essential traffic. This ensures that important applications are work quickly and are not interrupted by recreational or other non-essential applications.
What's better for the IT budget?
There is a rumor that upgrading your bandwidth is easy and cheap. All you need to do is increase the monthly fee; no CAPEX required. Upgrading your bandwidth CAN help when you are using all of your available throughput, but this is only a short-term solution.
As your company grows, so do its data and application needs. Eventually, backups and application traffic will overtake your bandwidth upgrade. Not to mention that many instances of "slow internet" are results of problems that don't even involve maxing out your bandwidth throughput.
WAN Optimization is a long term investment. Since it improve speeds through deduplication, compression, and increasing TCP/IP efficiency, the benefits will last much longer and scale better with your business. Once deployed you can use it for years.
As for cost sensitivity, some vendors offer tailored solutions within the budget of an SME with flexible deployment methods (physical or virtual) and payment options (Monthly, Annually, or Perpetual).
Download Sangfor WAN Optimization software and experience the differences on your networks now!
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