Jim Metzler and Steve Taylor are two of our resident WAN optimization experts, frequently sharing their insight in the Wide Area Networking Alert newsletter. In a recent conversation, the dynamic duo shared some great insight on where we are on the long road toward end-to-end optimization. To Metzler’s way of thinking, we’re moving from Stage 1 to Stage 2 of network optimization. In Stage 1, he says, the idea that IT should be assuring acceptable application performance reached the widespread enterprise consciousness. As such, IT undertook tactical approaches, solving problems on a piecemeal basis using WAN optimization controllers and the like. Now comes the hard part, and there are no simple answers in this stage. Enterprises have got to figure out how to assure application uptime, performance, management and security across myriad organizational and technology boundaries. Simply put, “We don’t do a good job of solving problems that cut across organizational boundaries.” Taylor agrees, of course. He puts it in the context of convergence, which we’ve been talking about for years. “When you really can’t tell the difference between the application and the network then we truly have convergence. And we’re only about 20% of the way there.”

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