Restaurant chain makes Web pages user-Friendly

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DENISE DUBIE ON NETWORK OPTIMIZATION
09/01/05
Today's focus: Restaurant chain makes Web pages user-Friendly

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Friendly Ice Cream chooses Stampede to improve WAN speeds
* Links related to Network Optimization
* Featured reader resource
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Avocent
Network World Executive Guide: Reviewing Trends and Insights for
SMB Executives

Life is different for IT professionals at small and mid-sized
businesses, which don't have the luxury of hiring legions of
network experts. Read how network executives are keeping a firm
footing on an ever-shifting product landscape. Learn about
trends and insights surrounding VoIP and VPNs; plus get
commentaries from leading experts on storage strategies for
smaller businesses.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111784
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TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

As technologies such as VoIP emerge to advance networks, many
believe the tools to manage them are falling behind. Traditional
management software models simply can't keep up with the rate of
real-time change that today's applications sustain. Is there a
solution pending or should network managers rely on their own
innovations? Click here:
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111641
_______________________________________________________________

Today's focus: Restaurant chain makes Web pages user-Friendly

By Denise Dubie

Friendly Ice Cream Corp. needed a way to improve the performance
of Web applications traveling over its satellite network to some
535 restaurants. While the satellite net provided the $575
million restaurant chain with cost savings on phone
communications, it failed to serve Web pages fast enough, with
load times ranging between 20 seconds to 2 minutes to total
timed-out failures.

"We went from a dial-up world to the satellite system, which
reduced the cost of our phone bills but provided us with limited
abilities to do Web pages," says Stephen Manning, senior systems
engineer at the company's headquarters in Wilbraham, Mass. "We
have large Web pages running sophisticated applications for our
restaurants, and we realized we'd need an accelerator to improve
performance."

In January, Manning began looking into products, and based on
several criteria - such as working with specific applications
that enable individual restaurants to inventory food supplies
and order more produce - he decided to test acceleration tools
from FineGround Networks
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6294> and Stampede.

Tests of the product proved to Manning that Stampede WebRider
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6295> would better suit the
company's needs because it was easy to deploy and required less
training that he believed the FineGround product might.

"We are a busy shop, and it seemed to require a lot less effort
to get it started and training to maintain it," Manning says. He
is still in the process of getting the software clients rolled
out to 535 locations by pushing the software out from the
headquarters.

Stampede WebRider comes packaged on an IBM server loaded with
SuSE Linux software as well as the acceleration products from
Stampede. It installs in the data center and behind a corporate
firewall and in front of a Web server farm. The appliance uses
content-aware caching and bi-directional compression to speed
Web application traffic over corporate WANs to remote and
branch-office locations.

Manning reports he is already seeing positive results.

"We are seeing at least an average 50% increase in Web page load
speed and at most an 80% increase," Manning reports. "We expect
when we get it rolled out to more than 500 locations to only see
more good results."

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Google dives deeper into networking
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6091>

2. 2005 salary survey <http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop4030>

3. VoIP rollouts generate heat, power concerns
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6296>

4. Cisco aims to simplify switch mgmt.
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6094>

5. VoIP season about to heat up
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6093>

Today's most-forwarded story:

VoIP rollouts generate heat, power concerns
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnetop6297>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Denise Dubie

Senior Editor Denise Dubie covers network and systems management
for Network World. Reach her at <mailto:ddubie@nww.com>.
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Avocent
Network World Executive Guide: Reviewing Trends and Insights for
SMB Executives

Life is different for IT professionals at small and mid-sized
businesses, which don't have the luxury of hiring legions of
network experts. Read how network executives are keeping a firm
footing on an ever-shifting product landscape. Learn about
trends and insights surrounding VoIP and VPNs; plus get
commentaries from leading experts on storage strategies for
smaller businesses.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=111783
_______________________________________________________________
ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Network Optimization newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/accel/index.html
_______________________________________________________________
FEATURED READER RESOURCE
VoIP

For the latest in VoIP, check out NW's Research Center on this
very topic. Here you will find a collection of the latest news,
reviews, product testing results and more all related to keeping
VoIP networks performing at their best. Click here for more:
<http://www.networkworld.com/topics/voip.html>
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