WAN Accelerators

Absolutely. We actually just went through a whole process of selecting a WAN accelerator product. I've looked at Cisco WAAS and Packeteer's iShaper in the past but in the end we demo'd and tried out Juniper and Riverbed. Riverbed won out. If you want to read more about our trials, I blogged about the whole process along with some end results at

Let me know if you have any questions about the products.

Jesse Middleton

c0d3w12 schrieb:

look at riverbed. good results for cifs, http, mapi and snapmirror we have it tested on 2 mbit/s. for instance snapmirror from 14h backup to 2,5h.

a.user

What type off applications ae you trying to accelerate?

I have worked with Riverbed Steelhead and Packeteer Packetshaper while looking into Cisco WAAS.

Packeteer's main product seems to be the packet shaper. It prioritizes data flows very similar to the way QoS and traffic queuing policies work on Cisco routers except that the Packeteer products have far superior web based graphical user interface. It also identifies applications for the administrator rather than resorting to TCP / UDP / other port lookups and referencing other means to identify applications. The Packeteer works as an in-line connected appliance. I found that the Packeteer packet shaper did horribly in improving data throughput. I was told to look at the Packeteer iShaper instead.

Packeteer's iShaper was described to me, but I have no knowledge of the product. It was described as a comparable product to the Riverbed Steelhead.

Riverbed's Steelhead forms a tunnel-like connection between end devices to transport accelerated/compressed TCP data. UDP, and from what I have noted also ICMP, are passed through normally. The Riverbed Steelhead gets configured with a management IP address and a tunnel end-point IP address which would be in the subnet where the device exists in-line. One initially configured for communication, it just takes off and works, and I mean this thing compresses data with incredible results. Also, when the Riverbed Steelhead is rebooted, it tranparently passes data through its network interfaces while it is offline or powered off. It will still mark QoS on traffic if needed by devices further down the connection. I consider the Riverbed Steelhead an impressive product, both in price and in perfomance. It can be cheaper than more long distance WAN bandwidth.

I have not used Cisco WAAS, but I know some things about it. WAAS products are either modules for 2800 or 3800 series routers or else as standalone appliances. They claim to compete with the Riverbed Steelhead. Go look up the Cisco WAAS on the Cisco product website to really learn about the device.

We've gone through the selection process and are about to deploy WAAS pilot between Irvine and Louisville. I'll let you know more after it's deployed. So far reading up on it, it sounds almost magical in what it can do. (Cache/Compress)