10-Considerations-WP

Rethinking the WANTop 10 Considerations When Evaluating WAN Optimization Solutions

© 2013 Aryaka Confidential and Proprietary. Do not reproduce or distribute without prior permission.1 691 S. Milpitas Boulevard Milpitas CA 95035 1-877-727-9252 www.aryaka.com

1. How well does the solution work across oceans?

As bandwidth costs have come down, and especially as more and more enterprises are leveraging Internet connections for some or all of their site-to-site connectivity, WAN Optimization technology is less about scaling bandwidth than it is about improving application performance. The longer the distance between client and server, and the greater the packet loss on the WAN, the greater this challenge becomes. Congestion-based performance problems resulting in high packet loss rates and variable latency happen periodically on the Internet, and even MPLS WANs experience congestion when crossing oceans.

Dual-ended, symmetric WAN Optimization appliance solutions were designed to operate well over “clean” private MPLS networks engineered for stable latency and very low packet loss, but they are not architected to work well over Internet links or over very long distance international links.

Top 10 Considerations When Evaluating WAN Optimization SolutionsEnterprises deploy WAN Optimization solutions for a number of reasons. Delivering better WAN application performance, especially given centralized applications being accessed by an ever more distributed global workforce, is at the top of the list. Here are some important things to consider, not all of which will be obvious, or things that a WAN Optimization appliance vendor would choose to bring up:

1) How well does the solution work across oceans?o Purchased appliance solutions are not optimized for this.

2) How does it address high performance, reliable access to SaaS and public cloud-based services?o Purchased appliance solutions weren’t designed for this.

3) How will you address WAN and application visibility?

4) Do you have the time and skilled personnel available to deploy and manage the solution?o Most people ignore this factor in their decision process.

5) Are you considering the Total Cost of Ownership?

6) How big is your capital equipment budget?

7) Do you have the budget to deploy MPLS everywhere?o Purchased appliance solutions were designed expecting a private WAN between

locations.

8) Can you afford the waiting time to deploy MPLS at all locations?

9) How quickly does ROI payback happen?

10) Do you actually need WAN Optimization and MPLS at all your locations?


By contrast, Aryaka’s WAN Optimization as-a-Service solution with its unique, multi-segment architecture combining cloud-based, purpose-built WAN Optimization technology with enterprise-grade connectivity utilizing a dedicated reliable core network based on globally distributed Points of Presence (POPs), is very much optimized to deliver superior application performance globally over long distances.

2. How does it address high performance, reliable access to SaaS and public cloud-based services?

Purchased WAN Optimization appliance solutions have been designed for deployment across locations connected with a reliable private WAN like MPLS. They are not designed for accelerating or providing predictable performance access to cloud computing services or other SaaS applications accessed over the public Internet. Congestion-based performance problems resulting in high packet loss rates and high latency happen periodically on the Internet, especially for international connections, and can make remote access to SaaS and cloud services unusable.

Aryaka’s WAN Optimization as-a-Service solution was designed from the ground up to provide accelerated, predictable performance to cloud-based services and enterprise locations alike, making it a particularly cost effective solution to enable enterprises to migrate more of their applications to cloud computing and SaaS providers without sacrificing performance or network predictability, reliability and visibility. Traffic between enterprise locations and SaaS or cloud services providers rides an optimized network to get directly to, or close enough to the colocation facilities where the services are hosted, delivering much better performance for those connections crossing an ocean, and more predictable performance all the time compared with using the unaided public Internet.

3. How will you address WAN and application visibility?

With purchased WAN Optimization solutions, if you want network or application visibility across the entire network (as opposed to within an individual device), you’ve got to pay extra for that. There are the separate costs involved in setting up the network-wide monitoring / visibility software on its own server somewhere, and managing and maintaining that software and hardware, and backing up the databases that go along with it.

With Aryaka’s as-a-Service solution, this capability is included at no additional charge. The MyAryaka™ web-based customer portal offers centralized access to highly granular, detailed end-to-end network and application usage reporting on the WAN. It delivers a real-time view of network health. Network managers can instantly see applications, locations, links, protocol- and port-level statistics to get a clear picture of network utilization and application performance.

4. Do you have the time and skilled personnel available to deploy and manage the solution?

Above and beyond the hard dollar costs of the purchased WAN Optimization appliance solution, the “soft” ongoing OpEx costs of handling the complexity of deploying, managing and maintaining the solution are substantial as well. It takes time and planning to deploy the equipment. Deployment at branch locations is usually straightforward



enough, but at headquarters or data center locations, planning and executing the insertion of the appliances is frequently complex, especially when redundancy and high availability are concerns. WAN optimization deployment projects can go on for months, even years in some organizations.

After initial installation, the ongoing maintenance begins. Software configuration. Software patches, whether for security or bug fixes, take time to install. Newer software releases can require time to test, and then usually need to be pushed out to all locations before coordinating the process of going live. And then there’s the additional effort installing and managing the monitoring / visibility software.

Beyond the cost in terms of time involved in doing ongoing management and maintenance described above, many midsize and smaller enterprises simply don’t have the technical skills available internally to take on this management burden even if they were so inclined.

As-a-Service delivery means that all of the WAN Optimization functionality, the core network and the reporting / visibility software are fully managed by Aryaka, so you don’t need to devote limited internal IT resources for this. Aryaka provides 24/7 support via NOCs located on opposite sides of the world.

5. Are you considering the Total Cost of Ownership?

While many large companies have WAN Optimization equipment deployed at least at some of their locations, analysts estimate that WAN Optimization appliances are deployed at far less than 10% of potential enterprise locations. Despite the many significant benefits provided by WAN Optimization, the traditional approach of purchasing WAN Optimization appliances to deploy over MPLS networks has a Total Cost of Ownership problem, due to a number of cost challenges that are inhibiting more widespread use.

There’s the obvious cost of the appliances, including the very high cost of the data center appliance. There is the cost of the annual maintenance/support. If you want enterprise wide visibility, you usually have to pay extra for that. Redundancy or scalability comes at an additional cost of backup devices and load balancers. In 3 to 4 years, there’s the additional cost of replacing aging hardware. There’s the ongoing internal people cost of managing the devices. And finally, there is usually the very high monthly cost of the underlying MPLS WAN service needed to provide the expected network reliability and predictability.

Aryaka’s approach, which combines enterprise-grade connectivity with purpose-built WAN Optimization technology and centralized WAN and application layer visibility all in a single solution, simply costs less. Less than using WAN Optimization appliances over public Internet VPNs, and a lot less than the cost of WAN Optimization appliances plus MPLS. All with a single monthly bill with no CapEx costs and no extra or hidden costs for reporting/visibility, maintenance or future upgrades. You pay only for what you need, when you need it. We offer elastic capacity with instant upgrades, so you can quickly and easily add bandwidth across our network at each location as you grow your business, with no risk of wasted upfront CapEx investment.



6. How big is your capital equipment budget?

The capital cost plus ongoing software maintenance costs of purchasing WAN Optimization appliances are hard to justify for many mid-market companies and at many locations. For branch offices, the initial purchase cost per location can exceed $10,000. The cost of the appliances for a headquarters or data center will often exceed $50,000, and can be much higher still, depending on network capacity and on high availability requirements.

There are more cash costs beyond just the cost of purchasing the appliances. Most vendors also charge extra for enterprise-wide management and/or for the monitoring and visibility software. There are also annual maintenance costs, which are typically 12% - 18% of the equipment purchase price.

And don’t think that using virtual appliances will solve the cost problem. Virtual appliance software is priced to deliver comparable margins to the vendor, so the cash costs are not meaningfully different with this approach – and customers still have to deal with the added OpEx costs and the challenge of support and maintenance of a non-integrated networking system. While virtual appliances do have their applicability, they are no panacea for the purchase cost of WAN Optimization technology.

With Aryaka’s WAN Optimization as-a-Service solution, you get WAN Optimization technology along with enterprise-grade connectivity via a dedicated core network based on globally distributed POPs, and centralized WAN and application-layer visibility, all in a single, no CapEx monthly service.

7. Do you have the budget to deploy MPLS everywhere?

MPLS is very expensive, typically priced at $275 - $600 per Mbps per month within the United States. It can cost as much as $2,500 or $3,000 per Mbps per month in places like China, Australia and Brazil. By contrast, Internet connectivity in the U.S. may be between $1 and $50 per Mbps per month, and while not always that inexpensive internationally, it almost always cost much less than the MPLS alternative.

Using the Internet on its own is not reliable enough for enterprise connectivity and performance predictability. That’s where Aryaka’s solution comes in. The cost of your connection to the closest Aryaka POP, whether over the Internet or with a direct L2 connection, plus the cost of Aryaka’s cloud-based service will be less than MPLS, often a lot less. With Aryaka’s WAN Optimization as-a-Service, you get enterprise-grade connectivity based on globally distributed POPs utilizing a dedicated core network with built-in diversity and redundancy as part of the package. Thanks to our unique, multi-segment architecture, it delivers LAN-like performance over the WAN without the high cost of MPLS. So you can leverage your existing Internet capacity, and can continue to benefit from innovation and competition in Internet access services, versus the very slowly declining prices for MPLS services.

8. Can you afford the waiting time to deploy MPLS at all locations?

Adding a new location to an MPLS network can take weeks, and for international locations can often take months. With Aryaka’s service, there are no long wait times. You can connect into the Aryaka network over your Internet connection, and be up and running in minutes anywhere in the world.



9. How quickly does the ROI payback happen?

There is no question that WAN Optimization appliance solutions have demonstrated positive Return on Investment (ROI) for many companies over the last decade, in terms of bandwidth savings, ability to forego bandwidth upgrades, plus the computing benefits from enabling data center consolidation, the “soft” (from the network point-of-view) benefits delivered in terms of user productivity from improved application performance. With the substantial initial investment cost of purchased WAN Optimization appliance solutions, the return on that investment varies widely, but positive economic returns are typically seen in between 6 and 18 months

The beauty of Aryaka’s Zero CapEx approach is that for WAN Optimization as-a-Service, “How quickly does the ROI payback happen” is a trick question! Since, there is no upfront capital investment whatsoever, customers see positive economic returns from their first month of use.

10. Do you actually need WAN Optimization and MPLS at all your locations?

As vendors of products and services, we would love to have you buy our stuff for as many locations as possible, and can always give you reasons to do so. But the truth is, sometimes even when you’ve got an application performance problem, you don’t need to deploy MPLS everywhere to address it, and you might not need to deploy WAN Optimization everywhere, either.

Most of the time, performance problems show up at the most distant geographies. It is there that you will need the benefits that WAN Optimization brings. Trouble is, for enterprises based in North America or Europe, the price of MPLS connections to locations such as India, China and Brazil can be budget busting. Moving to MPLS from IPSec VPNs might be unnecessary for communications within a continent (Europe, U.S.), and it might not solve all of your performance problems for distant connections. And purchased WAN Optimization appliance solutions which work well over MPLS don’t work nearly so well across the Internet, especially over very long distances, and so those might not solve your problem either. Neither solution alone is adequate to fix these issues.

A WAN Optimization as-a-Service solution connecting your distant global offices to your headquarters, data centers and any public cloud-services or SaaS may be all of the WAN Optimization that you need.

Revised: May 2013

ABOUT ARYAKA:Aryaka delivers application and network performance for the globally distributed enterprise for better collaboration, communication and business productivity. Aryaka eliminates the need for costly WAN appliances or long-haul private links. Aryaka’s premier WAN Optimization as-a-Service accelerates any application to any location on one affordable, optimized network. Aryaka’s Network as-a-Service provides organizations an optimized network with QoS for instant and reliable business connectivity. Aryaka’s Application Delivery as-a-Service enables distributed business users to quickly access centralized enterprise applications and Cloud resources from anywhere in the world. All services provide end-to-end visibility with 24×7 world-class support. To learn more, visit www.aryaka.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

691 S. Milpitas Blvd. Milpitas, CA 95035Tel: 1-877-727-9252www.aryaka.com

Aryaka, WAN Optimization as-a-Service, Network as-a-Service, Application Delivery as-a-Service and MyAryaka are trademarks of Aryaka Networks, Inc. All other brands, products or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

© 2013 Aryaka Confidential and Proprietary. Do not reproduce or distribute without prior permission.

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