Enterprises Want WAN Optimization to Work Across Companies

Insights from enterprise survey

Back in June we predicted that WAN optimization customers will want to extend their acceleration solutions across company boundaries. We just tested our hypothesis with a survey, and validated that enterprises do indeed want their WAN optimization solution to work with those of their business partners and customers.

In fact, 30 percent of the 127 enterprises we surveyed told us that they need WAN optimization solutions that work between their data center and their business partners' locations today, and 59 percent say they will need it within two years. Similarly, 41 percent need WAN optimization that works between their data center and their customers' locations today and 57 percent say they will need it within two years.

But here's the rub. Because there is a low probability that all of a company's partners or customers will share the same WAN optimization vendor, how can this work?

Well, the way we proposed in our last blog on this subject was for vendors to adopt a standard that would make WAN optimization interoperable so at least some optimization techniques can work across company/vendor boundaries. Our idea was roundly dismissed. Maybe we are just whistling Dixie, but it seems to us that when an important IT infrastructure component is not delivering a function that most customers need, that bodes ill for long term business health. Vendors ignore customers' needs at their peril.

If vendor interoperability does not come to pass, we predict that market demand will flatten sooner than it would otherwise as customers will find other solutions. In future blogs we will examine some of those alternatives.

• APM
• Application Performance Management
• WAN optimization