Generally, one of the biggest problems that many companies come across relates to WAN links that perform poorly. In most cases, when you come across a WAN link there is going to be some type of degradation in relation to performance. Usually, most of the performance issues that arise have to do with chatty protocols in addition to latency. Luckily, there are things that can be done in order to improve these types of problems.

One of the best ways to improve your company network involves the use of a packeteer. Essentially it uses multiple layers of technology in order to reduce the amount of response time that is involved in addition to improving upon the WAN performance. What it does is fix the common problems that are associated with the use of the traffic technology that is involved with the use of packeteer.

This is achieved through the use of bandwidth utilisation and application performance controls. In turn, this prevents the network congestion. In addition, the packeteer additionally ensures true QoS for mission critical applications, such as voice and video to CRM and ERP.

The way that it reduces the amount of network traffic is through file and block level caching. As this is achieved, native DFS (distributed file system) namespace integration is achieved, which reduces the amount of traffic that is experienced on the WAN. Most of the protocol support that is involved with the packeteer is Microsoft Exchange, HTTP, NFS, and CIFS.

Other types of protocols are supported with a TCP acceleration service. Unfortunately, at this time there is no support currently for UDP. Their unique signatures identify hundreds of applications. This is done through the pinpointing of the applications, such as KaZaA, TN3270, Oracle, Citrix, and SAP.

Additionally, this includes applications by the negotiation of dynamic port assignments in addition to shifting peer-to-peer applications. In addition, the masquerading of unsuspicious traffic, as well as eluding detection from the other monitoring devices. In addition, there is a sub classification system for the creation of other critical network traffic types, which helps to create thousands of Layer-7 custom signatures.

Some of the other ways that network performance is improved is by allowing admins to schedule pull/push operations to pre-populated data, which can be done at the branch office location. One of the other things has to do with the defining and optimisation rules in regards to specific applications. Overall, the packeteer is considered one of the more unique WAN optimisation appliances that are available to businesses today.

One of the advantages that come with the use of the Packeteer is how it is native to Windows, which allows it to have large performance gains since it can get in deep within the CIFS architecture. In addition, it includes a CIFS application proxy, which allows it to have significant results when it comes to reducing chatter that is experienced among the WAN. Additionally, it maintains end-to-end file locking as well.

So if you have a company network and are looking to improve its effectiveness and security, it might not be a bad idea to consider investing in a packeteer. There are plenty of different models out there to choose from, all of which are suited for various servers and traffic levels. Just do some research and find the one that works best for you.