Vendors Widen WAN Strategies

Peribit Networks Inc. today unveiled a new low-end device, the SR-15, that will work with the vendor's upgraded management software and be sold by a new partner (see Peribit Touts Product, Partnership).

Peribit's news reflects a trend among vendors of devices that boost application performance across wide-area networks (WANs). By overhauling their product lines and forging new partnerships, the vendor and its rivals are attempting to win deals from bandwidth-hungry users.

Key to success is having a broad product line, sources say. You don’t want to be a one-trick pony -- you need to be doing multiple product developments,” says Stephen Elliot, senior analyst at IDC.

Developing a range of products, a broad "footprint," helps vendors approach users that deploy a bunch of different-sized WAN optimization devices throughout their IT infrastructures. Vendors try to encourage a user to replace its handful of providers with just one for both its data center and its network infrastructure. The argument is that fewer vendors make the network easier to manage.

Peribit hopes to tap into this trend by upgrading its Periscope Central Management System (CMS) software. The new version contains an embedded database that tracks data on Peribit devices for up to a year. With the previous version, users could only track 90 days of data, according to Peribit execs.