WAN Space Picks Up The The Pace

The WAN optimization space continues to gain steam as both startups and big-name vendors prepare to arm their channel partners with a bevy of new products on which to build solutions.

Startup Riverbed Technologies this week is launching a major overhaul of its portfolio that includes a revamp of its software and the debut of several new high-end appliances aimed at the enterprise.

The move follows Citrix Systems' completion last week of its purchase of Orbital Data and the unveiling of an expanded partnership with Microsoft to target the WAN optimization market with new branch-office appliances built on the acquired technology.

Solution providers said the promise of providing LAN-like application performance over the WAN to branch-office users while simultaneously saving bandwidth and enabling server consolidation into the data center has more than piqued customers' interest in WAN optimization technology.

Customers of Trace3, an Irvine, Calif.-based Riverbed partner, are seeing a 75 percent to 95 percent improvement in application performance after they deploy the vendor's WAN optimization technology, said Hayes Drumwright, CEO of Trace3. "When a client gets that kind of performance increase, you don't have much to talk about after that. They just buy it," Drumwright said.