SMBs Turning to Cloud Need WAN Optimization Help

As SMBs are turning to the cloud to meet their storage, infrastructure, security, software application and collaboration needs, they’re finding they need to better manage the costs and complexities of the WAN networks.

That bandwidth can be expensive and tough to manage, opening the door to WAN optimization opportunities for channel partners.

As research firm AMI Partners pointed out in a blog post this week, there are several methods for implementing WAN optimization, and resellers and agents should continue taking note:

• Hardware appliances, such as Riverbed’s Steelhead Branch in a Box, Juniper’s Application Acceleration Platform and Citrix’s NetScaler Branch Repeater;
• Integrated network equipment, such as routers sold by Cisco and Avaya;
• Virtualized software such as Silver Peak’s, Riverbed’s and Netex’s that downloads to physical hardware on the network to create a virtual networking machine;
• Hosted cloud options such as Cisco’s wide area application, Virtela’s cloud-based Application Acceleration service and Aryaka’s WAN optimization-as-a-service.

AMI’s reminders come as the firm recently found that 92 percent of small businesses in the United States have Internet access, and 64 percent have LANs. Medium business, meanwhile, have 100 percent Internet access and 99 percent have LANs or WANs.