Networking » WAN Optimization

Navigating the WLAN management maze

With enterprise-class wireless LANs well on the way to becoming the preferred -- if not default -- network access method for organizations across all industries, it's imperative that the software available to manage WLAN gear is up to the task.

By C.J. Mathias | 24 September, 2008 10:51

Tags: wlan

Do you WANt to optimize?

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.

By Kevin Barrett | 08 September, 2008 08:05

Tags: wan optimization

Wireless LANs face huge scaling challenges

Philippe Hanset is wondering about the intersection of the Slingbox and the campuswide wireless LAN at University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where he's senior networking engineer.

WAN optimization: Better than a 'real' upgrade?

WAN optimization in a large enterprise is a nascent and headline-grabbing market. Still, IT managers are faced with the burning question: Is it really worth the investment?

What to look for in WAN acceleration gear

Considering a WAN accelerator? Kevin Dunn, director of network operations at First Command, says these three features are must-haves. Read our case study on First Command's WAN acceleration project here.

Taking it slow with WAN acceleration

First Command, a financial services firm with US$18.6 billion in managed assets and nearly 300,000 clients across the United States, saw the promise of the Internet as early as 1998. It quickly Web-enabled its core applications to support not only its own employees and individual customers, but also its far-flung network of financial advisors and their staffers.

A tale of two city Wi-Fi's

Different approaches to wireless Internet access in San Francisco and neighboring Silicon Valley are producing very different results, with one project springing up around the city and the other inching through regulatory procedures.

How one cash-strapped school district improved application performance

Education demands so much more than a notebook and pen these days.

Is managed WAN optimization the best option?

A tech-support call starts it all. Why is my application running slow? What happened to my spreadsheet data? Is HQ using a 56K modem to handle traffic for my branch office -- again? The number of calls suddenly increases, and network analysis reveals unforeseen usage spikes at a new marketing location. The dream of data-center consolidation turns into a nightmare.

Virtual goo

Virtualization is a superhero among technologies, transforming static, brittle data centers into dynamic, flexible resource pools and giving IT an easy way to cut costs, improve services and expand operations beyond the limits of the physical world. With great power, however, comes great responsibility.

10 ways to get blazin' apps

How to optimize, accelerate and otherwise ignite application performance

Pimp your apps

Tools for speeding sluggish applications traditionally are of two types: application-delivery controllers designed to ease the load on Web servers, and WAN optimization devices aimed at mitigating network latency and bandwidth constraints. Some say it's time for these two to consolidate.

Reader favorites: 10 great free network tools

Ten great free network management tools were recently showcased. Readers responded with some of their own favorites, so I'm going to take a look at those tools and report on their capabilities and usage from my perspective as an experienced network manager.

Cisco Q3 report card: Lots of A's and B's

Cisco on Tuesday posted a solid third quarter, with revenues and earnings slightly better than Wall Street expectations. But the company was challenged in some product and geographical areas, and Cisco also felt the impact of softness in the US and European enterprise markets.

WLAN overcomes despair in the T5 departure lounge

London's Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 is in many ways a controversial building. However, there's no denying the grandiose scale of the £4.3 billion project. Britain's largest free-standing building, it contains a mega-shopping complex, an advanced baggage handling system... and a nifty wireless LAN.

WAN acceleration on the ocean wave

Two luxury cruise lines faced the same satellite-delay challenges for shipboard Internet access and came up with different ways to address the unavoidable latency on those ship-to-shore connections and keep passengers happy.

Municipal Wi-Fi 2.0

Municipal Wi-Fi is dead. At least in terms of the model whereby cities award an exclusive contract to a service provider, who builds a citywide mesh network and hopes to make money selling broadband to consumers.

No end in sight for WLAN architecture wars

You'd have thought that, by now, we would have settled the WLAN architecture wars. You'd think one architecture or another would have been declared the winner and that we'd all be buying basically the same product from a small number of vendors -- just as is the case with Ethernet switches.