5 Misconceptions About Optimizing WAN Traffic For Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Posted by
Frank J. Ohlhorst
March 02, 2012
Many network managers often get tripped up by another issue--complexity. It is critical to use the simplest methodology for increasing performance; otherwise, acceleration technology can become too unwieldy to manage, measure and troubleshoot. That is a situation that can be solved using the age-old KISS (Keep It Simple and Short) principle.
Some mistakes don't become evident until it is too late or aren't thought of as mistakes until there are repercussions. One of those mistakes falls under the axiom of "expect the best but plan for the worst." A case in point is bypass testing (more commonly thought of as failover). Often overlooked, yet extremely critical, is what happens if acceleration technology fails. Simple questions such as "Will traffic still flow during a failure?" or "How does traffic route around a failed acceleration device?" are key when thinking about traffic interruption due to failures. Network managers need to implement equipment that is fault-tolerant but also test that fault-tolerance. The worst time to find out it doesn't work is during an actual failure.
Another common mistake network managers make when dealing with WAN and VDI acceleration technologies falls under the heading of misconfiguration. Many of the acceleration products on the market are resilient enough to still work, albeit poorly, when incorrectly configured. Many network managers will find that there are a surprisingly high number of incorrect configuration settings possible on networking devices concerning Ethernet negotiation. Some are as simple as making sure auto-negotiation is turned on both sides; others border on the more esoteric, such as one side of a connection being set to half-duplex while the other side is set to full-duplex. The lesson here is to perform due diligence when configuring the various networking components that make up the link between a VDI host and an endpoint.
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